Industry plea to save construction jobs

Interesting article in today's paper. I remember getting a letter to the same affect a month ago  and really thought little more of it. From my point of view it often seems that contractors often have a higher price than if Council do the work themselves and we, as Councillors, have encouraged staff to use Council staff if possible. However, many large contracts have still been let  as the expertise is outside of Council staff skill sets or the contractor has become an expert at a particular service and is able to delivery the service more cheaply. The two large ones that immediately come to mind are the waste management contract  and the footpath paving programme. I guess it's a matter of getting the balance right!