Laing O'Rourke

Can you briefly describe your role at Laing O’Rourke and your involvement in procurement, supply chain management or health & safety?

My role within Laing O’Rourke is Procurement Operations Leader, where I oversee a broad and diverse remit across the UK business. This includes responsibility for governance and process development supporting a procurement function of over 130 professionals, alongside category management for façade and envelope, central and bulk materials procurement, and the management of strategic agreements.

I also oversee procurement activities across IT hardware and software for the UK hub, as well as overhead and indirect procurement that supports all functions across the business. A key aspect of my role also involves the compliance, onboarding, and ongoing assessment of our supply chain partners, including alignment with the SSIP Deem to Satisfy (DtS) process.

Beyond my internal responsibilities, I hold a position on the SSIP Board and contribute to a number of industry working groups, including those focused on Modern Slavery, the Common Assessment Standard, and CLOCS (vehicle compliance and safety standards).

Collectively, these responsibilities provide me with a comprehensive and practical perspective on procurement, supply chain management, and health & safety practices, enabling me to support continuous improvement across both organisational and industry-wide standards.

Laing O’Rourke works across complex construction and infrastructure projects. What types of contractors and specialist suppliers do you typically engage across the supply chain?

Laing O’Rourke delivers across a number of highly complex construction and infrastructure environments, with a strategic focus on six priority sectors: Nuclear and Green Energy, Data Centres, Healthcare, Science & Technology, Defence and Rail.

Our operating model is distinct within the industry. We utilise an integrated delivery approach, combining significant in-house capability with specialist supply chain expertise. This includes our own off-site manufacturing facilities for precast concrete, mechanical and electrical (MEP) assemblies, and logistics services, alongside in-house site delivery capabilities across civils, geotechnical, structural and MEP installation.

As a result, our engagement with the supply chain extends beyond traditional main contractor models. Rather than relying solely on tier-one subcontractors, we adopt a more granular procurement approach, disaggregating packages and scopes to engage directly with multiple tiers of specialist contractors, manufacturers and suppliers.

This model enables us to access deeper levels of technical expertise, drive innovation, and maintain greater control over cost, programme and quality outcomes. It is particularly critical given the complexity, regulatory requirements, and performance expectations within the sectors we operate in.

Overall, our approach ensures a more collaborative and integrated supply chain, aligned to delivering certainty and high standards across our project portfolio.

Why is consistent contractor pre-qualification particularly important on large-scale construction projects?

Consistent contractor pre-qualification is critical on large-scale construction projects to ensure a robust, uniform baseline of competence, compliance and capability across the entire supply chain.

In today’s environment, this is increasingly important given the pace of change within the industry driven by evolving legislation such as the Building Safety Act and Procurement Act, alongside broader considerations including social value, global supply chain pressures and heightened regulatory scrutiny. Pre-qualification is no longer a static exercise; it requires continuous review, maintenance and improvement to remain effective and relevant.

For large-scale projects, adopting a consistent and standardised approach to pre-qualification ensures that all contractors and suppliers are assessed against the same criteria, expectations, and performance thresholds. This promotes fairness, transparency, and alignment across all tiers of the supply chain, whilst reducing risk associated with variable standards of competency and compliance.

The pre-qualification process provides greater assurance that all parties engaged in delivery are suitably qualified, capable, and aligned to required health, safety and operational standards supporting safer outcomes and improving overall project certainty.

Before working with SSIP, what were the main challenges associated with assessing supplier health and safety competence?

A primary issue was the lack of transparency and consistency in data. Information provided by suppliers was often presented in different formats and levels of detail, making it difficult to undertake like-for-like comparisons or establish a clear, reliable baseline of competence across the supply chain.

There was also a lack of standardised governance and process. Pre-qualification approaches varied across the industry, leading to differing interpretations of requirements and inconsistent application of standards. This not only increased internal complexity but also created confusion for suppliers.

From a supply chain perspective, this resulted in notable fatigue. Contractors and suppliers were frequently required to respond to similar sets of health and safety questions across multiple clients and platforms, often phrased slightly differently. This  duplication added administrative burden without necessarily improving the quality or assurance of the assessment outcomes.

Were there any specific inefficiencies, duplication issues or compliance risks that concerned you?

From a compliance perspective, the lack of a consistent, standardised approach increased the risk of variable assessments and inconsistent decision-making. Differences in interpretation, depth of review and governance controls meant that assurance levels could vary across projects or business units, potentially exposing the organisation to gaps in compliance or oversight.

How did Laing O’Rourke first become involved with SSIP and what were the main drivers behind that decision?

Laing O’Rourke has been engaged with SSIP for over 10 years, recognising early on the importance of embedding consistent and robust health and safety standards across our supply chain.

The primary drivers behind this decision were the need to improve safety performance, enhance governance, and promote greater awareness and adoption of industry best practice among our supply chain partners. At the time, there was a clear opportunity to introduce a more structured and aligned approach to assessing health and safety competence.

Implementing SSIP provided a recognised, industry-wide framework that enabled a consistent and uniform baseline for pre-qualification. This standardisation supported a more transparent, ethical, and efficient process, reducing duplication while ensuring that all suppliers were assessed against the same core principles and expectations. Our involvement with SSIP has helped strengthen assurance across our supply chain, while supporting continuous improvement in health and safety standards and overall performance.

How does SSIP support Laing O’Rourke’s wider procurement, compliance and supply chain assurance strategy?

SSIP plays a key role in supporting Laing O’Rourke’s wider procurement, compliance, and supply chain assurance strategy by providing a consistent and recognised foundation for assessing health and safety competence across our supply chain. It ensures that all suppliers meet a consistent and verified level of health and safety capability, which is particularly important given the complexity and risk profile of the sectors in which we operate. By establishing this uniform starting point, SSIP enables us to focus on driving higher levels of performance and maturity across the supply chain, rather than repeatedly validating core competencies.

We require our supply chain partners to meet a range of defined standards, including SSIP compliance through the Deem to Satisfy (DtS) framework, alongside alignment with the Common Assessment Standard, Building Safety Act requirements, and broader industry expectations. This is further complemented by engagement with initiatives such as the Supply Chain Sustainability School and standards relating to social value, cyber security and modern slavery compliance.

This approach supports continuous upskilling of our supply chain. It encourages suppliers to improve not only in terms of safety compliance, but also in wider areas such as governance, training, and operational delivery. This directly contributes to improved quality outcomes – whether through the quality of installation and workmanship, the safety of delivery or the competence and capability of the workforce.

How is SSIP used within your procurement or contractor onboarding processes today?

As part of onboarding, we incorporate SSIP compliance (DtS) within our assessment process to verify that suppliers have achieved a recognised and consistent baseline of health and safety competence. We also actively lean on SSIP certifiction bodies to support this process, relying on their independent assessment, validation and ongoing assurance of supplier compliance. This enables us to efficiently validate core requirements without duplicating effort, while ensuring alignment with industry-recognised standards.

Being a main contractor operating across complex and high-risk sectors, SSIP plays a critical role in providing assurance at scale. Through the certification bodies, it offers a trusted and consistent mechanism for validating health and safety capability, allowing us to focus our internal resources on higher-risk, project-specific or performance-based assessments rather than revalidating fundamental criteria.

Has SSIP helped streamline the way your teams verify supplier health and safety competence? If so, how?

SSIP has significantly helped streamline the way our teams verify supplier health and safety competence. DtS reduces the need for repeated validation of core health and safety requirements. This has delivered clear efficiencies across our procurement and assurance processes, including hidden cost savings through reduced resource demand and improved time management. Our teams are able to focus effort on higher-value, risk-based assessments rather than duplicating standard checks.

From a supply chain perspective, this streamlining is equally important. Many of our suppliers work across multiple contractors and historically this has required them to complete similar onboarding and assessment processes numerous times, often with only minor variations. This can be both time-consuming and burdensome. SSIP helps alleviate this duplication by introducing a more standardised and widely recognised approach, benefiting all stakeholders involved and aligning the certification bodies to support within this process.

What advice would you give to other major contractors or procurement teams considering a more standardised approach to health and safety pre-qualification?

In today’s construction environment, the importance of compliance, competence and how we assess our supply chain partners has never been greater. Increasing levels of audit, scrutiny and regulatory oversight mean that organisations must be able to clearly demonstrate that they are operating ethically, with integrity and with robust assurance over who they engage.

My advice to other major contractors and procurement teams would be to adopt a consistent, standardised approach to health and safety pre-qualification that establishes a clear and uncompromising baseline from the outset. Getting this right at the initial stage of supply chain engagement is critical – it sets the tone for how safety, compliance and performance are managed throughout the lifecycle of any project.

Health and safety should always remain at the forefront of operational delivery, whether that is on-site or through off-site manufacturing and early-stage engagement. A structured and recognised pre-qualification approach not only improves efficiency and reduces duplication, but more importantly ensures that all suppliers are assessed against the same high standards of competence and capability.

Doing the right thing at the first stage of assessment raises the benchmark across the entire organisation and supply chain. It reinforces a culture of safety, drives continuous improvement and helps ensure that projects are delivered responsibly, consistently, and to the highest standards.