The Construction Leadership Council (CLC) has announced a series of new appointments to its governing board and changes to how it is governed.
AtkinsR茅alis AMEA president Richard Robinson has stepped down from the CLC board to focus more time on his day job. A replacement process is excepted in due course.
Joining the board from the civil service are Becky Wood,聽chief executive of the new National Infrastructure & Service Transformation Authority (NISTA), and Cabinet Office staffer Clare Gibbs who is director of markets, sourcing & suppliers and the procurement review unit.
Also joining the board is former EC Harris partner Mark Farmer, who now runs his own consultancy business. He has joined the council as industry sponsor for people & skills, taking over from Construction Industry Training Board chief Tim Balcon, who has been delivering the role in an interim capacity during 2025. Balcon now becomes Farmer鈥檚 deputy in the people & skills work group. Farmer, who has also joined the Construction Skills Mission Board, has worked for the CLC before, writing a critique of the UK construction labour market model for the CLC, titled Modernise or Die, in 2016.
The expansion of the board, from nine to 15 members, also sees the addition of a representative from each of the CLC鈥檚 four strategic workstreams and, for the first time, the four industry sector groups. These new board members are: Institution of Civil Engineers director general Janet Young representing infrastructure; Home Builders Federation chief Neil Jefferson representing house-building; National Home Improvement Council chief Anna Scothern, representing domestic repair, maintenance & improvement; and Mark Robinson, chief executive of public sector procurement agency Scape, who chairs the CLC workstream called 鈥榩laces, assets and commissioning鈥�.
The CLC board is not the same as the CLC itself. The board exists to provide strategic direction to the council and ensure government and industry pull in the same direction.
The council is described as the engine room, where the real work happens, providing the data, guidance, expertise and resources to deliver on the strategy.
However, almost half of the council members are now on the board as well.
The CLC council has 27 members currently listed on its website. Only five of these work in what could be called industry, with a further 10 representing business interests as trade association functionaries.
Of the 15 CLC board members, only three work in business, namely co-chair Mark Reynolds, Berkeley Group director Karl Whiteman and now Mark Farmer.
It is all far removed from its origins as a meeting place for minister and captains of industry, especially with advisory group now also being scrapped. This means that Andy Mitchell, Simon Rawlinson and Vince Clancy are now surplus to requirement, despite their industry experience.
One final change sees the creation of a health, safety & wellbeing group within the CLC, led by Berkeley Group鈥檚 Karl Whiteman.
Mark Reynolds, executive chair of Mace Group and industry-side chair of the CLC, said: 鈥淭he CLC鈥檚 new governance reflects the increasingly central role of the industry to the government鈥檚 bold ambitions for the industry 鈥� and the need to make sure that every major sector has a voice. More than ever, every part of our industry has a role to play if we are to deliver the economic growth, housing and infrastructure delivery and job creation we so desperately need.
鈥淥ver the last three years the CLC has played a crucial role in convening industry and government and finding solutions for shared problems. The publication of both the refreshed CLC Strategy and the Construction Industry Workforce Plan in the first quarter of 2026 will set out a clear route forward for the ongoing transformation of our industry.鈥�
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