EDITORIAL Early warning O Alex Smith, Editor Email: asmith@cibsejournal.com Twitter: @alexsmith68 ne of the key themes at next months CIBSE Building Performance Conference and Exhibition is security, and we were fascinated to hear what conference speakers currently perceived as the greatest threat to the building industry. Business may be booming for many, but often this is the time when organisations should be looking at insulating themselves from unexpected future shocks. Some of the answers were sobering. The building industry may be experiencing a boom in the UK at the moment but some of those speakers reminded us that there are serious structural defects in the industry that need to be addressed. Past CIBSE president Rob Manning recognises the dangers of a booming economy, having experienced several cycles of boom and bust. He bemoans the loss of highly skilled engineers when economies suddenly hits the buffers. He says public sector spending must be more stable to help smooth over shortfalls in private investment. At the moment, he says, governments have a knee-jerk attitude towards investment, piling money into infrastructure, such as hospitals, schools and railways only to remove it as soon as the Treasury needs to shore up UK plcs finances. His hope is that the Construction Leadership Council containing a mix of industry leaders and asset planners in government will provide long-term investment plans. You only have to look at the sudden removal of government funding for renewables to see that something needs to change. Feed-In Tariffs are the latest green grant under attack, and the government has not yet revealed whether it is going to replace other initiatives that have been scrapped since the election. The Government Spending Review is on 25 November lets hope that it provides some Christmas cheer. One of the speakers at the CIBSE conference is head of building services at University of Oxford, Stephen Pearson. He warns that over-complication is making buildings too difficult for users to understand. In this issue we look at what Hoare Lea is doing to simplify buildings for users on the University of Oxford estate. Relatively small changes are having a stunning effect on performance and energy bills. Those organisations currently wondering whether to act on their Energy Saving Opportunity Scheme audits should take note.