Public construction procurement trends 2009-2014

Project Compass CIC has published a unique new report evaluating the trends in UK public sector architectural design procurement for commissions that come within the remit of the European Union Directive 2004/14 and its threshold values over the last five years (2009-14).

Project Compass CIC has captured over 12,000 OJEU notices, generating entities to cover all notice types in all procedures and under all instruments with frameworks, lots and their contents. This data has been interrogated and a range of concerns for the architectural profession in the UK, such as market access, evidenced.

Key headlines show:

- That a very small percentage of practices are winning the greater majority and value of project work year on year.
- The larger percentage of architects work is procured now through alternatively led multi discipline teams, engineers, surveyors, project and construction managers.
- The large public sector organisations are aggregating projects under single notices, one example being an authority which grouped some 870 projects in a single OJEU Notice.
- There is a vast tract of architectural work which is hidden i.e. it is not declared within notices save for the terminology 'design and execute', effectively laying open procurement to non professional routes.
- Finally, it is clear from the pattern of notices that responsibility and the quality of the design of our built environment falls to non professionals, contractors and those whose driving interests are other than design standards and quality.