Building Consistency in Public Sector Procurement in Construction
On 6 April 2017 Scottish Futures Trust published guidance (the Guidance) on the use of a baseline skillset for construction procurement by public sector organisations. This follows on from the Review of Scottish Public Sector Procurement in Construction (the Review) which was published in October 2013.
The purpose of the Review was to present recommendations for improving public sector procurement of construction works. It identified that whilst many public sector organisations have tremendous experience and expertise in construction procurement, some organisations also lack this and as such expertise varies significantly from one organisation to the next. Not all organisations which spend public money on construction procurement currently participate in the Procurement Capability Assessments process, which also makes it challenging to evaluate a spectrum of good to poor practice. The opinion of the Review (the full recommendations of which, save for the appointment of a Chief Construction Advisor, were accepted by Scottish Government in May 2014) is that any organisation using public funds to procure construction work, must deploy appropriately skilled people to do so, with no exceptions. Whilst the review recognises that it is unreasonable for the occasional procuring organisation to retain in-house capability, appropriate skill must be accessed somehow, for example by collaboration, sharing of services and using other expert public construction procurers as consultants. To assist with ascertaining what constitutes an “appropriately skilled” person, the Review recommended that guidelines be produced with the necessary blend of required skills so that procuring authorities can measure against these and confirm they have the capability and capacity to carry out construction procurement, or outline how they plan to achieve this capability.
The Guidance seeks to implement this recommendation by establishing minimum levels of technical competence for the Project Director (sometimes also known as the Project Sponsor or Senior Responsible Officer) and the Lead (or most senior) Project Manager. It is noted, however, that procuring authorities will also have to use their own judgment on “soft skill” qualities of inpiduals, such as leadership, communications and team building.
The Guidance identifies 7 key competencies for these key managers as follows
- Development Management e.g. business case preparation, land acquisition and planning consent;
- Governance e.g. chairing the project board, budget and scope ownership and governance approvals;
- Commercial Acumen e.g. value for money analysis, risk allocation and commercial negotiation;
- Project Management e.g. team management, progress on cost reporting and critical path programming;
- Stakeholder Management e.g. stakeholder identification and communications strategy;
- Procurement Management e.g. procurement strategy and legal compliance; and
- Contract Management e.g. contract risk management, progress monitoring and defect rectification.
Prior to considering a candidate against these key competencies, the procuring authority should use the Project Complexity Matrix to establish the complexity of the project. Once established, the Baseline Skillset Matrix can be used to determine whether inpiduals need to be “Expert”, “Experienced”, “Previous Involvement” or “Good Awareness” for each of the key competencies. Where a candidate falls short in any of these key competencies, it is for the procuring authority to address and resolve. The best practice recommendation for this is by collaboration with other procuring authorities who have staff that possess the necessary competencies. A procuring authority may also wish to outsource the role. Where a particular candidate is considered to be a very close fit, but falls short by a level below in a maximum of two competencies, the procuring authority may consider close supervision is a sufficient measure of mitigation.
Further guidance on what to look for in each of the key competencies is provided in the appendices of the Guidance. An online tool is also available which allows online completion of the Project Complexity Matrix and allows candidates to complete an online self-assessment against each of the key competencies which can then be analysed by the procuring authority.
The following flowchart sets out the procedure that should be followed by any procuring authority:
