Articles

Procurement and Tendering Processes

Project Compass Director Walter Menteth will be delivering a series of six RIBA Core CPD webinars on “Procurement & Tendering Processes” between now and November 2021.

Covid-19: PPN 01/20

On 19 March 2020 the Government issued Procurement Policy Note (PPN) 01/20 responding to COVID-19. “In these exceptional circumstances, authorities may need to procure goods, services and works with extreme urgency. Authorities are permitted to do this using regulation 32(2)(c) under the Public Contract Regulations 2015.” Regulation 32 (2)(c) states the following: – 32.— (2) The…

TheFulcrum.eu – Expanded and Relaunched

TheFulcrum.eu the first international portal for architecture commissions covering all European countries has now been relaunched. It remains free to all but with its new and expanded form it now covers thirty-nine European Countries. TheFulcrum.eu offers greater access and insights into public procurement and competition culture in Europe, contributing to improving construction culture across the…

VAT reform would promote CO2 emissions reductions, more sustainable building & cost nothing – so why the delay?

1t C02_Olafur Eliasson

A Project Compass response to the Climate and Biodiversity Emergency objectives defined in Architects Declare. Revised & updated from a Walter Menteth article 1st published in AJ: Sustainability in Practice. 28th February 2014) [i] Government for too long has been missing an enormous opportunity to incentivise investment in sustainable construction: VAT reform. This means redressing…

The temporary House of Commons & restoration of the Palace of Westminster

Palace of Westminster

What was the question this proposed temporary Parliamentary chamber and the restoration of the Palace of Westminster endeavours to answer? Is it reinstating and refurbishing Barry’s 165+ year old Palace of Westminster which is now clearly no longer fit for purpose, too small and inadequate, in need of reform, and in a country desperately needing…

Survey Results on UK Government Framework Agreements 2018

Results from the survey to discover if SMEs found the widely adopted Framework Agreement a simple and rewarding process for winning new business from government are now reported below and available HERE. The survey has been run on behalf of the Frameworks Working Group, a part of the independent SME Advisory Panel advising on central…

Northern Ireland is now open to fixed fee tenders

In N. Ireland methodologies on the procurement of design, where lowest price is no longer the determining factor have now been agreed between the Central Procurement Directorate (CPD), the RSUA & the construction sector (announced Sept. 2018). This halts the race to the bottom. Under the pilot all construction services contracts to be awarded by…

No Brexit deal – Accessing Procurement Notices

If there is no Brexit deal significant questions need answering about how all UK public contracts covering services, works and supplies, will be published, accessed, completed and remain transparent for public clients and commerce. Government announced on 13 September 2018 that if there is no deal a new UK e-notification replacement system will be made…

Carillion’s Collapse. Let’s learn lessons from this failure.

Carillion’s collapse: Project Compass director Russell Curtis has called in ‘Let’s hope the lessons of Carillion’s failure will be learnt’, (AJ 17 January 2018) for “a more diverse supply chain to avoid another Carillion catastrophe, so we can face a future with a diverse, specialist and varied supply chain, which matches projects with proficiency and project scale…

Open Call for the Venice Biennale 2018

PLEASE NOTE: the deadline for submissions has now been extended to 23 March 2018. Short illustrated articles on your experiences of architectural competitions in Europe are invited for the Venice Biennale 2018. This Open Call is part of a project that aims to improve architectural competitions and  design contests by appraising comparative performances, procedures and outputs…