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Last edited 24 Dec 2021

National Economic Development Office (NEDO) reports

Construction industry research in the 1970s and 80s focused on the criteria of time, cost and quality with regard to procurement selection. The NEDO reports, ‘Faster building for industry’ (1983) and ‘Faster building for commerce’ (1988) were produced to assist clients in procurement system selection.

The National Economic Development Office (NEDO) was the independent arm of the National Economic Development Council (NEDC), which was a corporatist economic planning forum established in 1962. The aim was to tackle the UK’s relative economic decline by improving communication between management, trade unions and government.

It continued to have influence in terms of setting the future strategy for business and industry through the 1970s, but began to decline in relevance during Thatcher’s premiership and was abolished by John Major in 1992.

One of the more influential of the NEDO reports was ‘Thinking about building’ (1985). This produced a chart listing nine criteria for the client to establish project priorities. The criteria were:

Time: Is early project completion required?
Certainty of time: Is project completion on time important?
Certainty of cost: Is a firm price needed before any commitment to construction is given?
Price competition: Is the selection of the construction team by price competition important?
Flexibility: Are variations necessary after work has begun on-site?
Complexity: Does the building need to be highly specialised, technologically-advanced or highly serviced?
Quality: Is high quality of the project, in terms of material, workmanship and design concept, important?
Is single-point responsibility to the client, after the briefing stage, desired?
Is direct professional responsibility to the client from the designers and cost consultants desired?
Risk: Is the transfer of the risk of cost and time slippage from the client important?

The NEDO reports were not universally welcomed, in particular, ‘Faster building for Commerce’ was deemed problematic and ‘off-message’ for pointing out the dangers of labour-only subcontracting. However they were precursors for the more widely-accepted construction industry reports such as the Egan Report and the Latham Report.