ACE to publically engage with clients "not behaving well"
The Association for Consultancy and Engineering (ACE) this week urged clients to stop placing unrealistic liability for projects on the industry.
Whilst at MIPIM chief executive Nelson Ogunshakin said that while the market was so buoyant, the industry had an opportunity to campaign against having to take on expensive professional indemnity insurance, demanded by clients.
He said that ACE members paid fare higher rates of insurance than their counterparts abroad, including Scandinavia. “UK firms are working over there and experiencing that so what is to stop them from doing less work in the UK?”
Ogunshakin identified airport operator BAA as an example of an enlightened client, because it ring fences project insurance rather than transferring it disproportionately to the industry.
Among those clients that have been criticized are the regional development agencies, who, it is argued, do not always fully understand the industry and projects.
“We intend to publicly engage with some of the clients that are not behaving well,” said Ogunshakin.
“We engage at the highest level, with CEOs as well as procurement departments.”
He said that past successes for ACE included last year’s intervention on the issue of reverse e-auctioning for professional services, with the result that Transport for London and Tubelines both stopped the procurement method.
ACE represents 800 companies in the UK, which employ a total of 45,000 people and have a combined turnover of 3.5 billion pounds.
Ogunshakin said he was at MPIM to “promote the best of UK consultancy,”
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