Procurement

We provide strategic advice and the implementation of procurement exercises. Our clients are primarily public sector bodies that need to comply with EU procurement regulations which in the UK are set out in the Public Contracts Regulations 2006.

Generally all of these schemes incorporate partnering principles or collaborative working using contract forms such as the ECC/NEC3. Whilst non-adversarial processes are to be preferred the form of agreement used need to be robust in order to facilitate appropriate exit strategies.

Examples of projects we have been involved with include:

• Advising a local authority with no capital resources how to procure the construction of a multi-storey car park. This involved evaluating their available assets to encourage developers to bid on an asset swap basis and the production of proposal documents that allowed bidders to put forward alternative proposals for the commercial mix. The developer’s proposals on this project provided a far more diverse mix of facilities than the Client had anticipated with a variety of ownership options and income generation streams associated with the car park.
• Preparation and coordination of a team developing a local authority bid for Private Finance Initiative credits in regard to highways repairs and maintenance. This involved working with council staff on a methodology to assess backlog, working with accountants on the preparation of financial modelling, writing the bid document for the authority and internal decision making briefing notes.
• Advising a Metropolitan Borough Council on its approach to procurement of maintenance services for highways repairs and maintenance; the construction of a major urban road scheme and letting of consultancy contracts. This ongoing series of projects required development of overall procurement strategies, Official Journal of the European Union (OJEU) contract notices, internal reporting, drafting of contracts (target cost and open book systems) contractor interviews and selection process together with soft market testing.
• Provision of strategic advice to RSL’s and SME’s on framework agreements and their operation to ensure minimal outlay on recurring procurement exercises. This flows from our work with the 4P’s (Programme for Public Private Partnerships) in training public sector clients on procurement and efficiency gains and our work for the former Welsh Development Agency providing a pan Wales series of seminars to SME’s on framework agreements and partnering.

In many respects the issue of procurement is closely linked to our Strategy section. If you have particular queries on procurement please do not heasitate to use our Query form.