MPs on yet another select committee, the House of Commons Transport Select Committee, have slammed public sector procurement practices and skills, this time after an investigation into the failed Intercity East Coast rail franchise
Blog and Comment
Mediation proving its worth
Approval of the performance of mediators among lawyers is fairly high, with about 80% of them getting a nod of approval in a bi-annual survey – or Mediation Audit – from CEDR (see News). Which means that around one in five of them didn’t perform up to lawyers’ expectations, for which of course there could be many reasons, such as the mediation didn’t go quite the way the lawyer hoped.
Procurement reform pressure mounts
News that Network Rail is to banish retentions and move its future projects onto a Project Bank Account set up is welcome news, especially for Tier 2 contractors in the wake of the Carillion collapse.
BIM expertise in short supply?
Is your lawyer or commercial adviser up to giving you the advice you need in order to incorporate Building Information Modelling (BIM) into your contractual relationships?
Zeroing in on zero retentions
Proposed legislation to protect retention monies in the event of insolvency will soon receive its second reading in the House of Commons and will then progress to detailed Parliamentary discussions in a committee stage, unless rejected by MP’s.
Stay calm and watch the carry-on
The proposed launch of a £30bn contractors framework could normally be expected to set pulses racing in any industry, with everybody keen to learn the details of the procurement process. When it is being launched by the Crown Commercial Service (CCS) however everybody stops holding their breath.
Carillion carnage masks PFI malaise
What the long-term fallout of the Carillion debacle will be is hard to predict, but it has at least shone a spotlight on the Private Finance Initiative (PFI), as well as the associated large, long term contracts that can bring contractors down if they go wrong.
More adjudicators needed
One of adjudication’s major attractions was supposed to be that it would provide a relatively cost effective as well as speedy route to freeing up cash flow logjams arising from disputes.
No end in sight to procurement woes
The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) had barely started to recover from the severe mauling it was given in March by the High Court over the Magnox fiasco when along comes another shaming investigation into the same events. If anything the latest scrutiny, from the National Audit Office (NAO), is even more damning about government contract negotiating and management skills than the High Court was.
Big battalions battle looming?
Taxpayers ultimately foot the bill for public sector spending so it is no surprise that the Taxpayers’ Alliance has responded to widespread concerns with the problems afflicting procurement of large public sector funded schemes with a fairly damning report.