CIOB - Crime Report

With reported crime in the construction sector costing just short of a whopping £1Billion per year the CIOB have investigated the scale and impact of this crime through it's member base of constructional professionals.

92% of the respondents to their survey have experienced theft with 63% estimating it occurs monthly or weekly on their projects.

91% of respondents have experienced vandalism with 61% estimating it occurs monthly or weekly on their projects.

The most common theft was of building materials. Interestingly sub-contractors were thought by respondents to be behind 32.5% of those cases which was slightly more than third parties. (11.3)

The construction industry is very susceptible to crime. Factors such as the constant turnover of staff, the mobility of the workforce and the temporary nature of project work make the industry an easy target for both opportunistic petty criminals and serious organised crime. Crime in the industry is varied and often reflects the location of the project. Comments throughout the survey indicate that construction sites tend to be more often targeted in cities and heavily populated areas, where an array of criminal acts occur – from theft to security racketeering. The nature of the construction workforce is also a factor that needs to be considered when examining crime in the industry. There are many temporary workers onsite, contracted for specific elements on a project. These numbers are constantly changing from day to day and it is difficult to enforce a strict site-access policy. The survey indicates that conflicts often arise with subcontracted staff and that it is these temporary elements of the workforce who are frequently involved in theft on site and incidents of intimidation/assault. The results show that directly employed staff are less likely to commit criminal acts, which could reflect the perception that a higher level of corporate responsibility exists amongst this group. 

No security measure stands out as being perceived as effective for monitoring staff onsite. The most common measures are reference checks (94%), qualification checks (90%) and the CSCS card scheme (85%). Despite these high figures, generally only around half of the respondents consider these measures to be effective. The CSCS card scheme has the highest number of respondents who feel the measure is not at all effective, commenting that this is because of frequent forgeries. 

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