Pondering Procurement

By Amanda Reynolds



We’ve been pondering procurement practices, having seen opinion pieces such as David Rudlin’s recent article (Building Design, 25th March 2024) about the problems URBED had with public sector project procurement. We are another SME committed to delivering high quality work for the public sector, but we struggle with the seemingly arbitrary demands of the ‘procurement industry’, as that is what it has become.

Most local authorities either have a procurement specialist or consultant running their bids. From experience these professionals do not always understand or appreciate design, planning, or the specific needs of a project. Separating procurement from project teams may seem like a good idea, but it can lead to a lack of understanding on the nuances of each place and project, and a failure to identify the best team for the job – or even the best brief for the job – rather than the one that has put together the most technically complying bid.

The demands of tenders are subtly different, requiring significant rewrites for each bid, including all the ‘functional’ aspects of insurance, policies, social value offerings, staff CVs, and project history. The opportunities offered by frameworks would seem to circumvent these issues by ‘pre-qualifying’ a shortlist of teams. Frameworks are hard work to get onto, but in theory should provide a steady stream of bidding opportunities requiring less arduous inputs and reduced competition. However, even these can succumb to the bulldozer of procurement processes, at times pointlessly demanding additional minute detail for specific policies, which were assumed to be sorted by jumping through the initial qualifying hoops.

Small practices have a tough job getting onto many frameworks, although many of these are now more open to the consortium approach with a group of practices. As we are highly experienced in putting together consortia teams for almost every project we do, we approach framework bids the same way and have had some successes (notably with Homes England and the London Mayor’s A+U frameworks) with our trusted groups of SME practices. This is giving us, if not exactly a level playing field with large practices, then at least an opportunity to compete with them more fairly and demonstrate what a mix of practices can do, bringing together the best of a range of specialisms.

Public procurement processes have a range of dysfunctional aspects and a fresh look at best practice could improve these to everyone’s benefit, in particular, in support of creative SME practices. The RIBA has a good publication ‘Ten Principles for Procuring Better Outcomes’ which we support, and further suggestions have been made by Alex Ely (Mae Architects) and Russell Curtis (RCKa) including standardising requirements, processes and contracts, as well as developing a fairer method of assessing quality over price.

We believe that by reducing the amount of time and the level of risk spent on bids by all professionals, the more time and money can be spent on design quality, social value inputs and practice support, helping to put more creative energy back into public sector projects.

Amanda Reynolds, Founder and Director