Majority not in the ‘Dark Ages

I worked for a small, private QS firm in York between 1985 and 1992. Yes, 20 years ago. At that time, I was running contracts on behalf of the practice that had been procured by:

• Competitive tender: lowest bid as contract award – value approx £2.60m
• Competitive tender: best value in terms of time, cost and quality – in that order - value approx £7.70m
• Negotiated contract open book: value approx £2m.

We, as a practice, did not consider this to be the cutting edge of construction, but just a common sense way of producing what the architect and/or client required.

We did actually talk to all parties, including the contractor, including them as part of the ‘team’ – and as such, we were all partners within the contract. It was never adversarial. You had the usual cut and thrust of everyday working, but it hardly got what you could call serious. Maybe that was down to me being a blunt Northerner.

Contractors were always a party to my cost reports to the client. What is the point in suddenly having a considerable extra or saving on your anticipated final cost? As a PQS, this is tantamount to professional negligence. Either the client has to find the additional funding to cover the unexpected extra, or they could have used the ‘saved’ money elsewhere or reduced their borrowing.

I have always prided myself (as have all my colleagues) on my professional relationship with both consultants and contractors – you never know when you may meet them again! They may also provide opportunities.

I would also disagree with Geoff Wright’s claim that QSs don’t necessarily make good project managers. There are some extremely good project managers who are, or were, QS’s. I’ll leave that for someone else to debate.

One last point: I should make it clear that I am expressing my own views here, not those of the Council.

Philip Wigham, East Riding Council