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.
Blog and Comment
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.
New risk assessment attitude rings changes
The implications of the Grenfell Tower disaster are obviously going to be felt in construction for years to come, and the inquiries, possible criminal prosecutions and civil actions will be capturing headlines outside the industry for a long time.
Construction and lawyers face same wave of change
The Financial Times held its first Future of Construction Summit in May, a well-attended event at ICE headquarters in Great George Street. The sub-heading was ‘Driving productivity through disruptive innovation and collaboration’, areas where the industry is widely agreed to be lagging.
Procurement off the rails
Construction of what is billed as the world’s most advanced passenger railway and the backbone of the UK’s rail network – the HS2 London to Birmingham line – already looks like being bedevilled by the same lack of attention to procurement processes as other large scale UK projects.
Out with the old normal – in with the new?
Commercial excellence is to be the ‘new normal’ in public sector procurement, Sir Jeremy Heywood, Cabinet Secretary and Head of the Civil Service, has said in a blog on the civil service website.
Matron could cure schools of scandal
Private finance type contracts came under harsh scrutiny by the inquiry into the buildings defects that led to the collapse of a school wall in Edinburgh in April 2016.
Procurement focused strategy published
A Green Paper for the first UK government industrial strategy for many years has been released for consultation, but receiving a lukewarm response from industry generally.
Arbitration market share under threat
Arbitration is the least heard of dispute resolution method, although it is the preferred method when many large scale projects go wrong, either technically or commercially. Confidentiality goes hand in hand with arbitrations of course, so little is heard of their outcomes.