PROCUREMENT ON TRIAL

摘要

Building this week reveals details of consultant Turner & Townsend's legal challenge against the procurement of the government's £750m project management and full design team services framework, run by publicly owned procurement adviser UK SBS. In June Turner & Townsend (T&T) was one of a number of major consultants to lose out on a place on the re-bid of the prestigious consultant's framework, seen as an essential gateway to getting government work. Though it levelled its challenge at UK SBS, this move effectively sees T&T challenging the actions of one of its biggest customers: the government. Whereas in the past taking your customers to court was considered by many as akin to commercial suicide, in the current climate it is merely one example of an increasing number of construction firms emboldened to challenge the buying decisions of the public sector. In recent weeks we have seen challenges by contractor Interserve of the Defence Infrastructure Organisation's Next Generation Estates procurement, though this has now been dropped, and by US contractor Energy Solutions of the Nuclear Decommissioning Agency's £7bn Magnox and Reactor Site Restoration tendering process, with Building publishing further developments this week.