A draft best practice guide to delivery of large scale infrastructure projects has been published as part of the government’s Cost Review programme that confirms Private Finance Initiative replacement PF2 as its preferred private financing approach, and supports the use of the NEC standard form contract on public sector projects.
The guide − Infrastructure procurement routemap: a guide to improving delivery capability − was produced by Infrastructure UK, an arm of the Treasury that is seeking efficiency savings of 15% on construction by 2015. The guide contains assessment tools to encourage adoption of common standards and processes in procurement of infrastructure projects. Early and clear communication with contractors and other suppliers is urged and supply chain collaboration and approaches involving alliancing are favoured.
Announcing the routemap Lord Deighton, Commercial Secretary to the Treasury, said it provides the private and public sectors with the tools to assess capability at delivering complex infrastructure projects. It also gives guidance on complying with European Union procurement legislation. Lord Deighton says the guidance will be reflected in his forthcoming infrastructure delivery reviews.
The guide says there is no one size fits all solution to the delivery of major projects, but there are some common characteristics that can be applied consistently such as early commitment to a pipeline of work, eff ective use of standard contracts, incentives to integrate the supply chain and effective governance.
It stops well short of saying that any particular procurement methodology should be applied in specific circumstances, leaving it open for inexperienced buyers of construction services to opt for a relatively straightforward methodology, and for those with more in-house procurement resources and experience to choose something more appropriate, and correspondingly complex.
Having in-house resources however is no guarantee of a smooth process, as the Department for Transport demonstrated with the West Coast franchise fiasco. Despite the existence and implications of crucial flaws being fully appreciated, the Laidlaw and Brown reports found that senior civil servants and ministers decided to proceed regardless (CL Vol 24 No 1 News).
The process was doomed to fail. Whatever procurement route is chosen, it is obviously essential that the correct procedures are followed, to the letter when so much is at stake with large frameworks and long term franchises that almost any fl aw in the process will lead to legal challenge and possibly delay to vital work that the construction industry and the wider UK economy depends on.
The guidance will be revised if required following a three month consultation and a series of regional ‘roadshows’, although as it has already been reviewed by the industry and its production was overseen by key clients like Network Rail and the Highways Agency there may be little change.
Th e Infrastructure UK has referred to the guidance as a form of institutional memory for construction project procurement, capturing and codifying best practice from many projects in the past. We can only hope that memories of the application of this guide will be better than some of those of infrastructure procurement’s recent past.
Nick Barrett
Editor