The Construction Leadership Council adds new members to its board and widens industry representation.
The Construction Leadership Council (CLC) has announced a series of new appointments to its board and changes to how it is governed. At the same time, Richard Robinson, regional president, AMEA, for AtkinsRéalis, will be standing down as deputy co-chair of the CLC to focus more time on his role with his company. The CLC will announce a process to appoint his replacement shortly.
The governance changes will enable wider representation from construction’s core sectors and the appointment of senior representatives from the National Infrastructure and Service Transformation Authority (NISTA) and the Cabinet Office.
Mark Farmer has joined the CLC bard as the industry sponsor for people and skills, taking over from Tim Balcon, who has been delivering the role in an interim capacity during 2025. Balcon will continue as Farmer’s deputy moving forward. Farmer has also joined the Construction Skills mission board.
Karl Whiteman, executive director for the Berkeley Group, will take on an additional brief as industry sponsor for health, safety and wellbeing, reflecting the more active role the CLC will be taking to integrate this area across all its workstreams, following publication of the CLC’s health, safety and wellbeing strategy in 2025 and the successful health safety and wellbeing summit in July 2025.
New governance and stronger links to government decision-making
The CLC board, co-chaired by Chris McDonald, minister for industry from the Department for Business and Trade, and Mark Reynolds, executive chair of Mace Group, has been expanded to include representation from key government departments, representatives within each CLC sector group and the industry lead from each strategic workstream.
The CLC’s advisory group, established to support the restructure of the CLC in 2022, has been formally stood down, with some members joining the board and others stepping away from their roles entirely. Becky Wood, CEO of NISTA, and Clare Gibbs, director of markets, sourcing and suppliers and the procurement review unit for the Cabinet Office, have both joined the CLC’s board from January.
The appointments reflect the CLC’s establishment of more formal relationships across government and aim to ensure that the construction industry has stronger links with the departments that shape the business environment within which the sector operates.
Wider representation from industry
The expanded board will include a representative from each of the CLC’s four strategic workstreams and for the first time, the four industry sector groups: –
Infrastructure: Dr Janet Young, director general and secretary of the Institution of Civil Engineers.
Housing: Neil Jefferson, CEO of the Home Builders Federation.
Domestic Repair, Maintenance and Improvement: Anna Scothern, CEO of the National Home Improvement Council.
Places, Assets and Commissioning: Mark Robinson, CEO of SCAPE.
A refreshed strategic direction for 2026
Members of the board will play an active role in the development of a refreshed CLC strategy and biennial report later this month. The new strategy aims to align the objectives of the industry with the government’s significant ambitions for the delivery of infrastructure and the built environment; particularly the construction of 1.5m new homes, the Clean Energy 2030 mission and the approval of 150 new infrastructure projects by the end of the parliament.
Mark Reynolds CBE, executive chair of Mace Group and co-chair of the CLC, said: “I would like to thank Richard Robinson for his huge contribution to the CLC since he took up his role as deputy co-chair in June 2022. Richard has personally driven forward the CLC’s agenda on net zero, biodiversity and next generation construction delivery over the past three years, as well as providing huge support to me personally.
“From the Advisory Board, I would also like to personally thank Andy Mitchell, Simon Rawlinson and Vince Clancy for their substantial contributions to the CLC over many years – they have all played critical leadership roles in building the network and guiding the industry through its challenging times.
“The CLC’s new governance reflects the increasingly central role of the industry to the government’s bold ambitions for the industry 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.
“Over 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.”
