In 2026, it is obvious that the world is changing at extraordinary speed. Pandemics, wars, artificial intelligence and automation are reshaping economies and societies. Our children will likely live in surroundings very different from ours. One would expect the construction industry, which builds the physical backbone of that world, to be evolving just as rapidly.
Yet when we look at how projects are still procured, how often they end in disputes, and how similar today’s case law is to that of decades ago, the conclusion is that our industry is lagging behind.Risk is still pushed down the supply chain, price competition still dominates and fragmentation is still present.
So why is it that we do not innovate and change our industry? If we want different results, we must rethink the architecture of delivery itself: starting with a clear client strategy, followed by procurement processes that reward value rather than price, contracts that integrate rather than fragment, and management practices that incentivise collaborative behaviour across the project ecosystem, recognising that only integrated decision making can deliver both productivity gains and meaningful carbon reduction.
So, what is wrong with the construction industry?
Recent industry analyses suggest that the construction sector’s worrying productivity stagnation, documented for more than a decade, is likely to continue unless the industry fundamentally rethinks how it operates. This stagnation is not accidental. It reflects deep structural features of the industry, including fragmentation and adversarial approaches to contracts and projects, but also the limited transfer of lessons learnt from one project to another. Research outputs by King’s College London show that clients, designers, contractors and subcontractors operate in silos, often meeting only once the project has already been shaped by price competition rather than strategy.¹ Early collaboration, when decisions about risk allocation, sequencing and innovation matter most is limited.
Can collaboration save the industry?
If fragmentation, lowest-price competition and defensive risk transfer are structural features of the current system, then the question naturally arises: can collaboration offer more than rhetoric — can it provide a different institutional architecture for delivery? It is precisely in response to these structural weaknesses that the UK began to rethink procurement. It all started with reports commissioned and published as early as the 1990s with the Latham and Egan reports being the best known but it has become increasingly evident today, after the publication of the Construction Playbook.² The Playbook mandates moving away from adversarial tendering models, promoting long-term, outcome-focused relationships that align commercial interests and foster innovation. It contains 14 recommendations including the promotion of long-term partnerships and collaborative models and is mandatory on a comply or explain basis. A similar instrument exists for the private sector, called Trust and productivity: The private sector construction playbook and published in November 2022. Complementing the Playbook, the 2021 Constructing the Gold Standard Frameworks Report, commissioned by the UK Cabinet Office and drafted by Professor David Mosey reinforces the principle that long-term relationships between clients and suppliers are essential for achieving better value and sustainability in construction outcomes.
Together, these policy instruments indicate that the UK government has gradually shifted from a paradigm whereby value for money in the construction industry is delivered through competitive tension to a paradigm of collaboration and long-term partnerships.
How do collaborative contracts work?
It is usually acknowledged that contracts can create and sustain a collaborative ethos in a construction project and that is exactly why collaborative construction contracts have become increasingly in the spotlight.
There is no universally accepted definition of partnering, alliance or collaborative contracts, but commentators often refer to the features identified by Latham. He recommended that a collaborative contract should at least include the following features:
- Duties of fairness, teamwork, mutual cooperation and shared financial motivation
- Clearly defined roles and duties in a fully integrated document
- Contract that is suitable for all projects and any procurement route
- Drafting in straightforward language
- Agreed allocation of risks for each project with changes priced in advance
- Flexibility as to payments with clear payment entitlements
- Incentives for exceptional performance
- Mechanisms for avoidance of conflict and speedy dispute resolution.
These types of contracts have also sometimes been referred to as relational contracts.
This is a concept coined by American professors Macneil and Macaulay. Macneil explained that whilst discrete transactions focus on the original express agreement between the parties, more complex, long-term agreements require cooperation and flexibility.
There are currently many standard form contracts that promise and deliver that with PPC2000, the NEC4 Alliance contract and FAC-1 some examples and a soon to be published FIDIC collaborative form another.
But contracts alone will not deliver systemic change. Contract clauses need to be complemented by techniques and strategies that start with a client’s strategy and develop into coherent KPI’s and contractual incentives, in other words we need to look at collaborative working as a system not a sequence of contractual obligations alone.
Collaborative working has been defined as “a structured management approach to facilitate team-working across contractual boundaries”.³ It supports interactions between multiple team members, and the quality of those interactions is one of the deciding factors in ensuring the successful outcome of the project.⁴
Collaborative working can be established and maintained using procurement and contract systems which integrate the following principles:
- Strategy – developing the client’s objectives and how consultants, contractors and specialists can meet them based on feedback
- Membership – identifying the firms that will need to be involved to ensure all necessary skills are developed and available
- Equity – ensuring everyone is rewarded for their work based on fair prices and fair profits
- Integration – improving the way the firms involved work together by using cooperation and building trust
- Benchmarks – setting measured targets that lead to continuous improvement in performance from project to project
- Project Processes – establishing standards and procedures that embody best practice based on process engineering
- Feedback – capturing lessons learned from projects to guide the development of strategy.⁵
For this approach contracts are important, but they must integrate and support other techniques such as Early Contractor Involvement (ECI), Early Supply Chain Involvement (ESI) and frameworks agreements (FAs) where demand is aggregated and lessons are transferred. ECI for instance, provides an opportunity for the client to obtain reasonably pricing and schedule information as the design is being developed and entails a two staged approach to contracts with Stage 1 including design development and construction planning, and Stage 2 being the period of detailed design and construction.
Delivering change for tomorrow today
It is clear therefore that a holistic approach is needed to solve these systemic issues.
We have named this approach the 4Is of procurement, a concept which refers to the need of (i) a clear Intention from clients and funders as regards the type of improved value they intend to achieve, (ii) Information, referring to an adequate procurement process with a focus on the exchange of information from client to contractors and supply chain and vice-versa, (iii) Integration via adequate collaborative contracts and clear mechanisms for joint decision making and (iv) Incentivisation via contract management techniques that help teams deliver as per their shared objectives and contribute to the transfer of lessons learnt. The future of construction law is likely to include a move to more collaborative contracts both at project level and at framework level but it should also include a rewire of the system with clients, consultants and legislators all agreeing the need to change our contracts, our approaches to procurement and the way we see, speak and collaborate to one another.
THE 4IS OF PROCUREMENT
1) Intention
Clarity from clients and funders on the value and outcomes they seek to achieve.
2) Information
Structured and reciprocal exchange of information throughout the procurement process.
3) Integration
Collaborative contracts and governance mechanisms enabling aligned roles and joint decision-making.
4) Incentivisation
Commercial and management structures that reward shared objectives and continuous improvement.
[1] White Paper drafted by King’s College London Centre of Construction law and Dispute Resolution in partnership with the Centre for Digitally Built Britain and the University of Cambridge on Procurement Strategies for Incentivising Collaborative Delivery to Optimise Whole-Life Outcomes . https://www.cdbb. cam.ac.uk/news/press-release-supporting-industry-realise-benefits-collaborative-approach-procurement
[2] https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-construction-playbook
[3] NEDO (1975), section 3.1, p. 25. The NEDO report went on to identify in particular “the client’s role in establishing his own objectives; and in establishing a proper brief for the project and clear reporting arrangements and lines of communication to enable him adequately to monitor the overall progress of the project through the design and construction phases” NEDO (1975), 1975, Section 3.1, 25
[4] Peter B. Smith, Michael Harris Bond et Çiğdem Kağitçibaşi, Understanding Social Psychology Across Cultures: Living and Working in a Changing World (Sage Publications, 2006), p. 144.
[5] John Bennett and Sarah Jayes, The Seven Pillars of Partnering: A Guide to Second Generation Partnering (Thomas Telford 1998). Other authors have referred to different principles which embody however the same ethos: alignment of interests, framing how issues would be resolved, integrated teams, fair allocation of risk and dismantle of unrealistic expectations. See Nick Saxton, ‘Considerations for Collaborative Procurement and Contracting’ (Russell McVeagh, 20 October 2022) https://perma.cc/L4QK-7QM7 accessed o4 November 2025.
Dr. Roxana Vornicu
Senior Lecturer King’s College London
Managing Partner Sirbu&Vornicu Law, Bucharest Romania
Accuracy Talks Straight #15 – Academic Insight