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"The much vaunted release of capital receipts and other Government regeneration initiatives have not yet reached small and medium sized building firms," said Derrick Ovington, National President of FMB, speaking at the release of the Federation third quarter Trade Survey Report.
He continued:
"Public sector workloads reported by our members are all in decline compared with a year ago. This has been the trend for the last six months, yet we read about increased orders by the public sector. It prompts me to ask just where is the money going?"
There is a silver lining to this gloomy picture. FMB firms surveyed reported a continuing increase in repair and maintenance work in private housing indicating greater confidence and willingness to invest by private homeowners. Private non-housing RMI work also showed a modest growth. It is to be hoped that the recent interest rate cut will maintain this confidence.
Regionally, FMB's members in the South West and Northern Counties (North East England and Cumbria) reported the good workloads with 92% claiming to be working at full capacity in Northern Counties.
South Wales, where many FMB members rely on grant aided work, has the weakest workloads. 26% of firms surveyed report a decrease, only half the firms were working at full capacity and 10% reported redundancies.
London based firms had mixed fortunes with as many reporting increased workloads as reporting a decline. However, only 44% say they are working at full capacity.
Growth in the South East outside London appears to be constrained by labour shortages with 40% of the firms surveyed saying they were short of bricklayers and 55% short of carpenters.
Those working in the private housing RMI sector are bullish about future workloads, but overall the picture is pessimistic with public sector workloads expected to continue to fall.
First posted: 23 October 1998. Last modified: 04 February 1999.
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