News

MPs hear strong criticism of councils’ procurement practices

Story for CM? Get in touch via email: [email protected]

Comments

  1. Having worked in the Civil Engineering industry for 30 years as a quantity surveyor / cost manager I have been witness to many changes. 30 years ago we tendered contracts, tenders returned and generally the lowest tenderer won the contract. Today really nothing has changed, the lowest tender still gets the contract except for one thing the Procurement Process. What added value does it bring to the tendering process that we already had 30 years ago, and yes these additional astronomical costs are ultimately paid by the client in additional tender prices. Somebody has got to pay !!!!

  2. After studying my masters in Building Information Modelling for Integrated Construction I have come to understand that the construction industry needs to move towards building strong relationships within the Supply Chain, which will reduce overall costs due to supply and demand. Also with data enriched designs during the construction stage with the ability to automate some of the tedious processes can save time which can be used to carry out design to cost analysis on projects. I am currently working on an outline process model to ensure that the supply chain are integrating BIM alongside the design teams to ensure that this process can be implemented and ultimately save client money, not just on the inital cost but the running, maintenance, replacement and redevelopment of their assets. The initiative the local authorities should be looking at now is how can this be implemented on their existing assets not just new builds or redevelopments.

  3. The Housing Associations run their tendering with weighted scoring based on massive tender submissions which are mostly ignored because they would take a day to read.
    Interviews can have a huge effect, if the 2 sides happen to find harmony or discord in the personalities involved.
    My experience is that carefully prequalified contractors face more judgement from artificial standard lists of questions.eg.
    ”What do you understand by the contract requirements?”
    than from the tender price which is awarded just 40% weight in the process.

    Result has been the 2 lowest tenderers get narrowly beaten.
    Costs though are passed on to the tenants and leaseholders with a fixed HA charge of 12 % for the pleasure. No wonder we have escalation year on year way above inflation.

Comments are closed.

Latest articles in News