Is the tide finally beginning to turn in favour of design quality considerations in public sector procurement? Recent events suggest that design is moving up the agenda: new Treasury guidelines for clients are on the way that will put a far stronger emphasis on design appraisal, and this week the influential Commons Public Accounts Committee threw its weight behind a greater weighting for design in PFI projects – very much in line with the RIBA’s Smart PFI model.

The Public Accounts Committee’s report was concerned with the debacle of the Paddington Health Campus and concluded that the inadequate business case for the PFI project should never have been approved until sufficient design work had been completed.

RIBA President Jack Pringle addressed the committee last year, explaining how Smart PFI could have avoided many of the problems that dogged the project. Speaking this week, he said he was delighted with the committee’s support for the RIBA position and for the positive response that the proposals have now received from Treasury and the Office of Government Commerce.

Meanwhile RIBA Vice President for Practice Richard Saxon reports that a new supplement to the Treasury’s Green Book, effectively the rulebook for public sector procurement, will be published in the spring that will require projects to justify themselves in terms of operating costs – minimum ten years – as well as headline capital costs. Environmental impact, in terms of carbon emissions and water use, will also have to be taken into consideration.

Inevitably these demands can only be met through appraisals of more advanced design submissions.

Saxon, who sat on the working group that looked at the whole life cost approach to project value for the Public Sector Construction Clients Forum, says the supplement will reinforce the design aspects of the Gateway Review stages that must be completed during procurement.

The new Gateway Review scenario readily falls into line with Smart PFI in terms of ensuring that the client has an affordable and acceptable design concept before going to the market for a contractor.

[RIBA Practice Bulletin No. 383]