Procurement blues

The property sector has failed to resolve key strategic issues for large builds, making it difficult for those responsible for procurement. By John Cahill

It is an essential failure of human nature that we believe, at some stage in our lives, that we can get something for nothing. Or, at least, for a lot less than it ought to be. This is the logic behind the “50 per cent off” banners in the sales windows. But, 50 per cent off what? I always wonder.

Legend, history and our own personal experiences are evidence of this: fool’s gold, the Trojan horse, and the three-card trick that I used to see being used to hoodwink innocent tourists on Charing Cross Road below my office window. The emperor’s new clothes, however, is the example that I think is most apposite.

Happy ignorance
You pay for what you get. Yet we still fall for offers with blind optimism. This is also true in professional lives. The need for endeavour, skill, time and a certain degree of risk are happily ignored when considering investments, property deals and construction projects. The fact that we have created a society where trade skills have almost disappeared, makes the construction of a building even more difficult and this, balanced with a desire to get it done quickly and at minimal cost, makes it a highly risky business.

I have observed that when we have a procurement system which regularly fails (Wembley, the Millennium Dome, the Scottish Parliament and, possibly, Olympics to follow), we do three things. Firstly, we pay lawyers large sums of money. Secondly, we present the building or architect with an award. This gives the building and its financial history an untouchable status. Then, thirdly, rather than trying to work out what went wrong and redirect the construction industry down a different path (training, direct labour, resource lead programming), we invent a “process” for an entirely new system, but without repairing the central damage.

New meanings
We have invented “design and build” (which is a treatise all on its own), “project managers” (because our architects can’t manage building contracts), “M&E co-ordinators” (I’m always promised one, but they never seem to appear), “design co-ordinators” (because architects don’t have working drawings any more), the “guaranteed maximum price” (Wembley) and, my current favourite, the “framework” (because people think that when you have been through a process, to get on a framework, then all the failures have been made unrepeatable).

Over the last few years, a refusal to admit to large build failings has, allegedly (because I can’t get the figures) resulted in some spectacular overspends with the new school academies programme. So, if my observations are correct, when spring approaches next year, watch out for the launch of Partnership for Schools. The DfES has decided to procure all new academies in an entirely untried and newly invented process (see above), involving a framework (here we go again) of six major contractors who will tender for all (yes, that’s right, all) the city academies either as singles or in large bundles.

Same old story?
The risk of producing them on time and on budget will happily be accepted by the construction industry, quite a short way down the design chain and, apparently, everything will turn out perfectly on time and on budget... There are lessons to be learned here for everyone who is undergoing their own procurement programmes.

John Cahill is managing director of Barnsley Hewett & Mallinson. John can be contacted on jc@bhmarchitects.com or 020 8878 4667.

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