In the seven days since Carillion announced it was filing for liquidation Phil Bishop has posted approximately 8,000 words on the subject in the form of various news reports for The Construction Index. Here is his first comment on the story.

Phil Bishop pieces together the story of the biggest corporate failure in UK construction history.

Another 230 former Carillion employees have been laid off this week, bringing the total redundancies since the company’s liquidation to 1,371 and rising.

Carillion subcontractors are set to lose £800m of retentions payments as well as perhaps equal sums owed for completed works.

With Carillion going into liquidation, the actions of the directors will now come under sharp scrutiny.

Rupert Soames, chief executive of Serco and grandson of Winston Churchill, has set down his thoughts on what the demise of Carillion means for public service contracting. It makes interesting reading, so we reproduce it here in full.

The government has agreed to look again at the whole question of construction procurement and the construction industry model in the wake of the collapse of Carillion.

Carillion has been on the edge of a precipice since its profits warning in July and subsequent posting of a £1.1bn interim pre-tax loss in September. Clients and joint ventures partners have had months to prepare contingency plans and some of these are kicking in today.

The collapse of £5.5bn turnover Carillion is sending shockwaves across the UK construction industry and beyond.

Carillion has failed to reach a deal with creditors and is going into liquidation.

Carillion had a reputation throughout the industry as a dysfunctional organisation, a supplier tells us.