Nobody noticed

The answer is the big debate happened 10 years ago and nobody noticed. The EU published its 1997 green paper on re-shaping EU public procurement directives, resulting in a new directive that came into force in January this year.

At the time, I attended conferences organised by the CBI and the (now defunct) Association for Regulated Procurement of which I was a member.

The Treasury’s head of procurement spoke, as did representatives from the European Commission and Professor Sue Arrowsmith, the UK’s leading academic on procurement law. I was the only QS. One architect attended and no contractors, but scores of lawyers.

On behalf of my company, I proposed seven amendments to the directives (one of less than 300 submissions received by the Commission, Europe-wide), but none saw the light of day in any shape or form.

We now have an industry where public procurement is governed by EU directives, which, according to the Treasury's own statistics, do little to encourage cross- border competition (the intent of the directives). Instead, they stifle innovation and real competition, and widen the gap between those who are active in the public sector marketplace and those who are not.

Public procurement in the UK is a disgrace which, short of withdrawing from the EU, we can do nothing to rectify.

Graham Stow, director, Complete Construction Management