He drew attention to the fact that government collectively procures about 40 percent of the construction industry's output.

Despite this, over the last 20 years the government has relinquished its internal resources as an informed client by,for example, abolishing the Property Services Agency (PSA) and closing the Department of Health's technical expert centre at Euston.

He said: "Government largely abandoned its opportunities for internal informed technical guidance and feedback. Then it delegated the public sector procurement role even further to individual schools and hospital groups,so more and more projects were in effect procured by first time clients.... It is my strong belief that if the Government is serious about improving the outcome of the construction industry, not least the carbon emissions of our buildings, it needs to become an expert client, perhaps by using the positive aspects of the PSA model."

Leeper also decried the rise of adversarial relationships between clients, contractors, suppliers and consultants.He called for adversarialism to be replaced by trust. Despite general agreement that partnering is the way forward, real partnering, in relationships as well as in processes,has not achieved anything like its potential. Leeper listed some of the main obstacles to progress:

• 'Partnering' contract clauses are becoming even more onerous.

• Responsibility boundaries are becoming more blurred,when joint and several liability for the whole project is required of each key supply chain member.

• Risk dumping occurs frequently,even where the risk is quite beyond the influence of the supply partner to manage.

• Insistence on retentions continues.

• Designers,both architects and engineers,find themselves playing an elaborate game of musical chairs as they continue to be sought after for their specialist skills,but by different leading contractors/consortia.

• Profit margins remain very low for much of the supply chain.

He charted a better way for the future based on the foundation of trust: "Many organisations have not yet fully realised that developing trust is potentially a powerful source of competitive advantage:that being adversarial with suppliers and partners consumes more resources for less benefit than taking a proactive commercial approach based on trust. I know this works: I have proved it in our practice over more than two decades." On the role of CIBSE and the other chartered institutions, Leeper pointed out that whilst modern commercial organisations have only recently moved towards corporate social responsibility, the institutions have had this as their core purpose for 100 years or more.

He said: "Beyond the requirement on their members to serve their clients competently and with integrity, all the Institution Royal Charters that I have read include as a fundamental objective a wider duty of care to society at large. Given this clear undertaking, the Institutions could and should be seen as an important part of any attempt at solutions."

The Address pulls together many of the issues facing the industry, issues that were covered in the Addresses of Leeper's three immediate predecessors (Doug Oughton, Terry Wyatt and Graham Manly): skills shortages;adapting to climate change and developments in construction technology; and delivering sustainable buildings, resources and competencies.

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