Prime Minister David Cameron’s recent pledge of a ‘roads revolution’ was a welcome sign that the government has woken up to the need to replace and improve much of the UK’s infrastructure. Sceptics have noted that we have heard all of this before and none of this was in any way ‘new’ spending; what will be new is if it is spent in anything like in line with the proposed timetable.
The prospects of a massive public spending programme getting under way without becoming bogged down in lengthy legal challenges to already lengthy procurement processes are getting bleaker. The latest turn in the much troubled £750m Project Management and Full Design Team Services framework procurement saga means that the entire process is to be scrapped and is to be undertaken again from scratch.
The framework was eventually let in June this year, having been supposed to go live in June 2013. It was quickly put on hold when Turner & Townsend mounted a legal challenge to what most agree was a flawed process. Various public sector clients for design work have abandoned hope that UK SBS would get the framework in place and have been going ahead with work anyway.
But bypassing the framework wasn’t an option for the major consultancies that were invited to bid, and they have wasted millions of pounds on abortive bid costs. Those who had come through the process as winners can be forgiven for feeling just as aggrieved at the cancellation as the original losing bidders.
It looks like being at least a year before the process can be got through again; or two years if previous performance turns out to be anything to go by. In a statement UKSBS, which ran the process on behalf of the Crown Commercial Service (CCS), said the decision was taken in part because the CCS wanted to establish a category for buildings in the framework that would offer a centralised commercial and procurement service for public sector projects. Further changes to the original process can be expected.
The weaknesses of public sector procurement skills generally are well enough known, and the government has been taking steps to improve things, setting up new training initiatives for senior project managers for example. The processes are governed by EC rules and lay down precisely what steps need to be taken and how they are to be taken at every stage. There is some sympathy for the view that even the most scrupulous attention to detail could still leave a decision open to challenge, such is the complexity of the rules.
Losing participants in the bidding for large framework deals are increasingly willing to mount challenges when they see legal grounds. Much more than ever before is at stake, as it could be many years – thanks to possible framework extensions – before losing bidders get another chance. In the past the disgruntled losers could have kept quiet and hoped to pick up something else in a few months, but packaging work up into frameworks has reduced those opportunities.
We are all losers in this as vitally needed infrastructure is being delayed while legal challenges go on. The courts look like they will continue to grant suspensions of contract awards when challenges are made, as we reported last month. It is increasingly obvious that the government needs to be looking at not just a Roads Revolution, but also a Procurement Revolution. And the road to that could be a very rocky one.
Nick Barrett
Editor