The best innovations are possible when public sector clients 'specify intelligently', leaving enough flexibility in the specification for the contractor to exercise their operational expertise and to respond creatively to the specific needs of a particular service. Over-detailed specification stymies original thinking.
Some clients understand this very well, and in part, this comes with experience. For example, one expert said:
"Our customer is now more flexible... [The design] is less tightly specified, leaving us to deliver the best solution. For example, at [one earlier facility], the admin area had to be built in blocks - whereas it could have been built in one place - so the space is tied to that purpose, even though some of the offices are now unused. In [a later facility] we were given more flexibility and we built the admin area open plan.
These days you need less space for admin because technology has advanced, so we're converting some of the open space to other uses."
Experts working in another sector described the conditions that enabled an innovative solution in one particularly cutting-edge facility:
Expert A:
"It was a Greenfield site, that's the main thing. We could have a totally new layout."
Expert B:
"Yes, that's a big factor. And there's no retained estate [existing facilities retained under the PPP]. When you have a lot of retained estate, there are severe limits to what you can do."
Expert A:
"There was also a strong political will behind it. There was a desire to provide a state-of-the-art facility. That's what they were looking for, so they were open to ideas. The wanted a world-beating building. The idea for one innovation came from the United States…
Expert B:
"…Although it's also used in [a facility in Ireland]. We went over there to see it in action and understand how it worked, then we adapted it and applied it at [our facility]."