Frameworks have become a crowded and confusing marketplace. The Civil Engineering Contractors Association identifies over 1,660 public sector construction frameworks procured between 2015 and 2019 with an aggregate value of up to £220 billion. The sheer number of framework procurements illustrates why clients and suppliers need to make clear distinctions between the value that different frameworks offer.
A Gold Standard can help clients and suppliers identify where the real differences lie, what questions they should ask when assessing a framework, what answers they should expect and how they can make informed decisions.
Over 1,660 construction frameworks were procured between 2015 and 2019. |
Review participants express concerns regarding current uncertainty and confusion as to which public sector frameworks will govern particular pipelines of work. They highlight the wasted time, money and resources that they devote to bidding for multiple frameworks which are not connected to specific pipelines of work, just in case particular projects or programmes might be routed through one of those frameworks.
Where the industry is bidding for large numbers of frameworks and tracking which of these might govern any future work, these efforts are not productive and do not enable investment in delivering improved economic, social or environmental value. There is no commercial or competitive benefit in allowing multiple frameworks to claim the same pipelines of work and to create multiple possible routes through which suppliers might win the same potential projects.
70% of industry review participants will not bid for a framework with no pipeline. |
Pipelines of work are essential for frameworks to drive strategic planning, continuous improvement and the delivery of better, safer, faster and greener project outcomes. Lack of visibility of prospective work does not offer clarity or inspire confidence and it will not attract supplier commitments. Over 70% of industry review participants state that they will not bid for a framework that does not offer a pipeline of work.
Review participants comment that problems are exacerbated by:
■ Clients destabilising pipelines and framework relationships when they shop among many different frameworks and make their choices based on the lowest framework provider fee levels
■ Competing and contradictory claims by different framework providers as to the pipelines committed to their frameworks without any objective measures or third-party validation
■ Variable levels of clarity offered in framework procurements to help suppliers understand the potential pipelines committed to those frameworks
■ Variable connections between framework providers and those clients and sectors whose interests they claim to serve.