Increases in enquiries, orders and anticipated workload indicate that the specialist sector may be stabilising according to the latest NSCC State of Trade Survey.

The results for the first quarter of 2010 show that enquiries have risen by 9% and orders by 18% compared to the previous quarter. This has led to a 17% increase in the number of Specialist Contractors predicting an increase in workload compared to this time last year.

Suppliers’ prices have risen for the third successive quarter with 62% of Specialist Contractors reporting an increase in prices compared to 33% in September 2009. However, there has been almost no movement in tender prices during the same period with only 3% of respondents reporting an increase this quarter, which is placing more pressure on already tight margins.

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This is exacerbated by poor payment practices with 96% of Specialist Contractors waiting longer than 30 days for payment and a member of the Association of Interior Specialists revealed that “payment periods are the worst they have been in our 13 years of trading”. This is in spite of a commitment from Government to make payment within 30 days a contractual requirement in the public sector from April 2010. 40% of monies withheld in retention from respondents were overdue for release with almost one fifth ultimately written off as bad debts.

There is continued nervousness regarding the financial stability of clients and restricted lending from banks and this is impacting on capacity and expansion plans with only 52% of Specialist Contractors currently working at over 75% capacity.

NSCC now contributes its findings to the State of Trade Survey published by the Construction Products Association (CPA) to enable the experiences of the specialist sector to be compared with the wider industry.

(GK)