4.1.1.  Design quality

73 percent of authorities who responded rated the design of their project as good or very good (see Figure 9). There was only one project, in the water sector, where the authority rated the design as poor; this was due to technical performance failures and difficulties in operating and maintaining the plant as designed. In this case payments were deferred until the issues resulting from the poor design had been resolved; the public sector might not have had the same protection under conventional procurement .

Figure 9: Authority perception of design quality, at evaluation and now.

There has been little change in authorities' positive opinions about the quality of design between bid evaluation and the operational phase. This might reflect the fact that many authorities were closely involved in scrutinising the designs and commenting on them at the bidding stage. Indeed, it is worth noting that the responses to this question from both authorities and contractors are likely to be biased, and a wider survey including users and professional architecture and design bodies might have given different results.

In interviews, some contractors commented that design briefs were becoming increasingly prescriptive. But this should be set against the increasing experience of authorities in commissioning new buildings and the impact of standardising design on reducing bidding and procurement costs. Contractors have the opportunity to submit variant bids if they believe that an alternative design solution will offer better value for money.

It was not possible to judge what the impact of PPP procurement as opposed to conventional procurement had been on project design.

User feedback

20 projects reported that they had evidence of feedback from users. Feedback mechanisms included formal surveys, comments from user groups, anecdotal feedback from employees and users, and complaints procedures. In some cases, positive feedback was inferred from a lack of complaints. The majority of feedback about design was positive.

Recommendation: Authorities should ensure that formal feedback systems, for example user surveys, are in place.