News round-up - 1 September 2015

£500M for Faslane infrastructure, growth reports up 31% in August, Graham Olver leaves WYG and Government to place a third of work with SMEs.

Jackie Whitelaw
01 September 2015

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1. Funding for more than £500M of infrastructure work on ship lifts, sea walls, jetties and other major projects has been committed to by Chancellor George Osborne. The work is  to ensure Faslane continues as a world leading naval base; home to Astute and Successor submarines, their crews and engineers until at least 2067. The work will take ten years to complete and is expected to start in 2017.

2. Economic growth continued to pick up pace in the three months to August, with strong expectations for the next quarter, according to the latest CBI Growth Indicator. The survey of 754 respondents across the manufacturing, retail and service sectors showed the pace of growth sped up for a second month running, with a balance of output volumes at +31% in August. This was just below the 2015 high recorded in May (+33%), itself the highest balance since May 2014 (+35%). Expectations for the next three months are buoyant, with another firm expansion in business volumes anticipated, at a slightly cooler rate.

3. Arup has been appointed to the UK Home Office’s £1 billion Emergency Services Mobile Communications Programme (ESMCP) to enhance critical emergency services capability and improve public safety. Arup will support KBR Ltd to deliver a modernised communications and data service using 4G technology. This is the first time emergency services operations will be managed at scale across a commercial network anywhere in the world. Arup will provide project management support, technical assurance and specialist training services to a network of approx. 300,000 staff across the Police, Fire and Ambulance Services and Trusts in the UK.

4. RenewableUK is warning that Government changes to the Feed-in Tarrif programme will in the long term scare away many people and in the short term create market chaos. The UK Government is reducing support across technologies and setting a cap on the number of schemes supported each quarter. But these limits will be hard to understand in advance, so increase the risk for anyone applying for support, the organisation said.

5. WYG chief operating officer Graham Olver has decided to step down from the consultant’s board with immediate effect. WYG said: “We will not be seeking to replace the role of chief operating officer; instead we will create a more streamlined reporting structure and enhance the role of the Major Projects Unit.”

6. Carillion revealed its new orders had fallen to £1bn in the first half of this year from £3.4bn in the same period last year when it announced its results last week. The construction group said this was due to a slow down in public sector contract awards. Turnover for the first six months of the year increased 21% to £2.26bn with pretax profits flat at £67.5M. 

7. WSP is to buy Canadian engineering consultancy MMM for $425M (£204M). The 2000 strong MMM business produced net revenues of £127M last year, three quarters of it from Ontario.

8. Government is to up its 25% target for work placed with SMEs to circa 33% by 2020 minister for the Cabinet Office Matt Hancock has announced.  In 2013 to 2014, central government spent an unprecedented £11.4bn with small and medium-sized businesses – those employing 250 employees or less. This is equivalent to 26% of central government spend. The new target would mean an extra £3bn per year (in 2013 to 2014 terms) going to small and medium-sized firms directly or through the supply chain.

9. Plans to launch an all-night Tube service in London on September 12 have been deferred. London Underground said it wanted to allow more time for talks with unions to reach a deal on pay and conditions for the new service. No new date for the night Tube introduction has been announced. Rail unions have staged two 24-hour strikes in a dispute over the new service and had threatened longer walkouts before suspending the action.

10. The SNP Deputy First Minister and finance secretary John Swinney is to delay publication of the Scottish Budget until after the UK Government has announced details of its spending review near the end of the year. Scottish local government is not expecting news on its allocation until the end of December as a result.

11. Former chief secretary to the Treasury has been knighted in the dissolution honours list announced last week.

12. First recipient of investment from the Institution of Mechanical Engineers’ new fund, Stephenson LP, is Lontra. The fund has been introduced to back companies developing cutting-edge UK technologies. The Midlands firm won the investment having impressed with the success story of its revolutionary Blade Compressor®.   Like George Stephenson’s miner’s lamp and the Rocket locomotive, the Blade Compressor® promises revolutionary benefits. Heavy industry depends upon compressors to deliver power to manufacturing lines, drive furnaces and convey materials. Collectively such compressors account for ten per cent of the world’s industrial electricity consumption. For 60 years, improvements in efficiency have been measured in single percentage figures, the Blade Compressor™ as the first clean-sheet design in 80 years, offers a 20% reduction in energy consumption.

13. Osborne has joined the 5% Club. By joining The 5% Club, Osborne is publically committing to the aim of ensuring that at least 5% of its workforce are apprentices, graduates or sponsored students on structured programmes within the next five years. 

14. A ban on "unsafe lorries" in London, introduced as part of efforts to protect cyclists, has come into force. Heavy goods vehicles  must now be fitted with side guards to prevent cyclists being dragged underneath and special mirrors to give drivers a better view of cyclists and pedestrians. A ban on left turns for construction lorries is the next option that is being considered.