1. We recommend that departments look to include provisions in contracts which ensure that all of the unitary payment due to the consortium is at risk. In the Berlin Embassy project, the FCO achieved a notable success in including such a provision in the contract.
2. We recommend that departments should find out from bidders the identities of all the parties to their bids so that they can take an early view on whether conflicts of interest exist. In the case of the Berlin Embassy, the FCO were not aware that a German subsidiary of Johnson Controls had played a part in two of the three short-listed bids, although there was no evidence in this case that the competition had been weakened as a result of this.
3. We recommend that departments should recognise that where they want bidders to demonstrate greater innovation it is more likely this will be achieved by asking bidders to produce their own designs. In the case of the Berlin Embassy there was less scope for bidders to make their own innovations, particularly because the design had to take account of a complex brief, local planning regulations and security requirements.
4. We recommend that departments should put themselves in a position to identify the reasons for major differences between the bids and the Public Sector Comparator, both in overall terms and in different elements such as construction and operating costs. The FCO followed this as far as they could in the case of the Berlin Embassy, and focussed mainly on total cost comparisons.