Maude set to announce trials of new forms of procurement

Cabinet office minister Francis Maude is set to announce a raft of new procurement trials at the Government Construction Summit next week, Building understands.

Maude is expected to give a full update of progress on the Government Construction Strategy, launched at the end of May last year, which is thought to include a number of additional pilots of new forms of procurement.

Currently there are 37 trial projects under the Construction Strategy, including trials of three distinctly new forms of procurement devised by chief construction adviser Paul Morrell. Therehave been calls for more government clients to adopt Construction Strategy procurement principles, such as early contractor involvement, partnering and an open-book approach.

The government will publish a “One Year On” report detailing progress made with implementation of the strategy so far and an updated action plan.

The government’s procurement and lean client task group, and its standards and lean supply chain task group will also publish their final reports. The procurement report is expected to fully endorse the use of frameworks to buy construction, despite the reservations of SMEs.

For more information on the summit click here.