body building – or building for the larger body?

So, it is forecast that something in the order of forty percent of the population in the UK will be defined as clinically obese by 2030. Obesity is a medical condition in which excess body fat has accumulated to the extent that it may have an adverse effect on health, leading to reduced life expectancy and/or increased health problems. People will also be noticeably larger, and heavier, on average than now, with consequences for the built environment.

At the micro level furniture will need to be designed for heavier usage, for example office chairs will perhaps need to be more robustly designed and specified to sustain the heavier weights and larger girths of this projected population, whilst office layouts will need to address aisle widths and desk layout pitch to ensure easy access for those who fall into this category. Office space requirements may thus need to be redefined per head compared with current levels. Cooling may need to be more responsive to respond to an increased heat load due to the increased exertions of the heavier individual and their respiration and perspiration, and to simultaneously cater for those of a leaner physique who can attune their body temperatures more quickly. This could be costly.

Toilet areas will need to be built and refurbished to allow easier access into cubicles for the wider individual, meaning that toilets for each sex will need to be increased in footprint to meet the requirements of the Building Regulations in the provision of numbers of cubilcles. This could detract from the gross area of the building, reducing net lettable area and thus rental returns, potentially forcing square foot rates higher to compensate.

Eight person lifts? Well, I’ll leave you to work that one out.

But lifts raise an interesting point, if you’ll excuse the unintended pun. Lifts are expensive items, and a lot of effort goes into specifying these to present a quality public image to support the brand of the landlord, developer, and occupier. Why not so then for the adjacent stairs? Lifts, a bit like the automobile, make people lazy for short journeys. How little is spent making stairs inviting to use – they are almost an afterthought in so many buildings, and also frequently poorly maintained and thus unpleasant to use. So often they are tucked away with an obscure door solely for fire escape purposes. Climbing five or six floors in a staircase  several times a day is good and easily acquired free exercise – forget joining the gym to burn off some of those calories (and save some money) by using the stair instead of the lift! And it may just help in reducing the extremes of obesity that could affect the net to gross ratios – so, to help reduce this problem, stairs should be more prominent and inviting to encourage their usage.

legal niceties

A new year, and a fresh beginning – well it would be nice to hope so! One thing, though, that never seems to change from year to year are appointment documents -  working through one is just as mind numbing as years past. It’s probably more fun being at the dentist. The question, of course, is why must each organisation commissioning construction work use different documents, each requiring careful scrutiny, and the usual arguments between legal advisors and insurers? Why is it not possible, as has been suggested so many times in the past by many in the industry, to use one standard document for appointments and warranties, just as there are for building contracts? With an industry that really has to cut its costs over the next year, this must surely be a priority, saving not only time and money for those consultants on the receiving end, but also for the clients themselves. But, being cynical, what legal firm is going to say to a client ‘Just use the standard document’ when a fee can be earned for rewriting it?

The wider question is of course the reason they exist in the first place. Simplistically, a lack of trust. Start off a project with onerous legal documents, and the relationship is already marked. Yes, ok, one hears of projects that do go wrong, and it is necessary to protect those that should be protected from flawed decisions of whatever origin, but would it not be nice to see mutual trust being more highly valued in business relationships, and when did you ever see that being raised as a question in a prequalification document? Certainly over the years I have worked in the industry, those projects where trust was a clear quality of the whole team’s motivation were probably the most enjoyable and memorable on which to have worked. One, in which client and contractor shook hands as the sole agreement to accelerate delivery, was delivered three months early, and significantly under budget. No legal niceties needed there.

But clients want sureties and protection, so it is likely that such necessities as legal agreements will continue, although one can only hope in a simplified and standard format. It would, of course, be simpler if satisfaction could be easily measured and guaranteed, perhaps in the manner of the waste collection company illustrated below…………..?

Happy New Year!

What the future holds…………….

It’s not long until Christmas. A quick consultation of the diary shows a little over five weeks. And a week later it’s 2011, time to wonder what the forthcoming year holds. Time seems to pass quickly these days – it only seems yesterday that it was January. By comparison, the woes of the construction industry feel as though they have been with us longer than any care to remember, with seemingly little respite in view.  Despite this many that I talk to are putting an optimistic view on the future even though this will have a very different outlook to years prior to 2008. Public sector budget restrictions and the ongoing difficulties of the private sector in obtaining finance will undoubtedly continue to restrain recovery – is this blind optimism, or genuinely founded feeling? Well, it may be all to do with the position from which the future is being viewed.

Public sector work in Scotland as we go into next year will be undertaken through the Scottish Futures Trust. The Scottish Futures Trust (SFT) has been a long time coming to fruition, but next year will be the first for the new hubcos, the actual contracting organisations that will undertake the work, being in position. The first, for the south east region, was appointed recently, and that for the second, the north, has just been announced. The remaining three will follow quickly and prior to the Scottish elections in May 2011. Underlying each of these are long term contracts of up to twenty years, to undertake approximately £1billion of work. Plainly, each of the hubco organisations is well placed to look optimistically into the future based on this outlook, and on which they can plan long term profits.

The intent, of course, of the SFT is to deliver efficiencies into procurement and to put savings of approximately £100-150million back into public coffers each year on projects ranging from transport, schools, health, and regeneration across local authorities, NHS boards, and other public sector bodies. Whilst undoubtedly, one would like to think, the large projects have the potential to demonstrate such value, can the same be said for the smaller, one off, projects that will fall under these contracts? Their inclusion and execution under these contracts will inevitably lead to an additional layer of management and thus cost compared with the more direct way these have been undertaken in the past with smaller and more appropriately sized organisations, and risk centralisation of such work into a very limited number of organisations. This will thus mean less for everyone else, with the potential that those who have depended on projects of this type in the past will find life more difficult in a market where there is generally less work.  Less work potentially means less companies, means less choice and thus competition, with the potential for prices to rise, thus failing to deliver the value back into the public purse.

Interestingly, a check of an Oxford English Dictionary that I have defines a ‘trust’ as an ‘association of several companies for the purpose of united action to prevent competition.’ Rather cold and chilling words.

So, it’s not long until Christmas, and then time to consider what the forthcoming year holds for those working in the construction industry………………

Not ticking all the boxes

I was interested to hear of some client feedback on a recent OJEU submission for a medium scale public sector building project, where the weighting of the responses do not, perhaps, deliver the necessary value or quality that is supposed to underlie the whole OJEU process.

 To give you an analogy, would you buy a car on the basis of the quality of the product and the way the car is delivered and serviced, or on number of staff that the car manufacturer employs? I think I can guess your answer, so it is perhaps perverse that the selection process for this particular project seems to have been weighted to discount smaller companies by giving nil point  for smaller companies’ staff resources, despite their track record in successfully completing projects of similar size and quality. Thinking about it further, a smaller company would undoubtedly utilise the very same staff that worked on the previous project, providing continuity of knowledge and quality, whereas with a larger firm the team may be differently configured, as staff do not sit around waiting for the next project to be commissioned, potentially delivering a different product. Back to the car analogy, think about the likes of a Ferrari sized company or the more amorphous GM. If you were looking for a sports car, would you weight the score on the basis that GM employ more staff?

 The real underlying issue here, particularly in the light of up to a sixty per cent reduction in capital expenditure across the public sector, is that due to the selection process an increasing number of smaller companies will be unsuccessful due to this self perpetuating procedure until there is little choice for the public sector in terms of who to appoint. This can only mean, ultimately, an increase in charges due to the economics of limited competition, which rather defeats the purpose of public sector selection.

Post script added 11 November 2010

Since writing the above, I was contacted by a contractor who told a similar story of the ineptitude they had encountered in a recent public procurement process. To put this in context, the contractor concerned is a medium sized and successful organisation working throughout the UK, and with a very credible track record in high quality fit outs across a wide range of project types. They recently responded to a public procurement advertisement for the multi million pound refit of a major, and historic, civic building in one of the UK’s major historic cities, and one close to their headquarters, a project well within their capabilities. From the plethora of submissions that is now a matter of course in these recessionary times their submission managed a very creditable eighth position against serious national competition, this, however, regrettably being insufficient to progress through to the tender stage.

A debrief with the procuring organisation followed. Oh yes, the procuring organisation advised, the contractor had put in a very good submission, and in fact the quality displayed was one of, if not the best submission received. So why was the contractor not included in the tender list, which was made up solely of major national and international names? Well, they are bigger than you, and, quote, “they are very good at filling in PQQ forms.”

OK you say, perhaps not only good at filling in PQQ forms, but probably have other aspects that outweigh the fit out contractor being considered for the work, and therefore the position being taken by them in telling this story was a “it’s not fair because we didn’t win”. What, however, the procuring organisation failed to understand is that a significant number of the national companies on the eventual tender list do not have the in-house capability of carrying out the project due to the specialist nature of the work, each depending on subcontractors to do this for them……………and yes, you have probably guessed what’s coming, in the very same fit out contractor being approached by these national contractors to tender for the very same work for which they were turned down. The consequence will undoubtedly be an additional layer of management and cost for which the procuring organisation will have to pay, from the public purse at a time when economies are being sought, and a lengthened communication system with the potential for misunderstandings to be introduced.

The point of all this is that, once again, a procuring organisation has undergone a tick box process, quite possibly seen as an end in itself, without fully understanding the consequences. Perhaps to turn the review on its head, the procuring organisation is ‘very good’ at creating a tick box sheet. The sad thing is that the persons responsible appear to have very little experience of the construction industry, and cannot, therefore, structure the questions, or probe at interview, to ensure that the best value is obtained from the successful contractor, with this value being returned in the completed project to the long suffering public who have ultimately to pay for this through their taxes.

Looking in from the outside, it seems that the process of public procurement is overtaking and demeaning the very product that is required as an outcome, at significant cost to the tendering organisations (see my previous blogs on this) and to the wider public. It really is time that those who run the country, our politicians, took this process to task to cut the waste that these processes seem to be generating.

public sector procurement process carries financial penalties.

Have you noticed how many independent qualifications have to be held these days to allow a submission to be made for public sector projects? Some public bodies, for example, will only consider an application if the applicant is Constructionline registered, …..and CHAS, ….and holds quality assurance, ….and environmental systems, ….and can provide its own D&B reference, and……. and of course the bodies overseeing these and providing membership and registration all require an annual fee for membership, and never mind the cost of maintaining and administering these internally within the applicant’s organisation. On costs that can only, at the end of the day, come from earnings, with the potential to erode profit in order to remain competitive.

 All fine and dandy, you might say, never mind the cost, only appropriate that all these quality controls are in place to ensure there are no cowboys bidding for projects.  But the cynic in me has to wonder whether they are ever properly reviewed when the submissions are returned.

 Sad then, that despite all these quality checks I was told by a friendly engineering consultant who had recently won a framework panel agreement with a national government body that they then had to subsequently to competitively bid for projects as they arose in so called ‘mini-bids’, each seemingly small due to the current public sector cutbacks. Yes, fine again I’m sure, in assuring value, but they were additionally advised that his team must attend a site walk round, and also separate interview as part of the selection process…. on a small very sub £million project. Fees for this particular consultant as part of the overall team were small, making profit generation difficult – in fact the very retendering process, interview, and walk round probably killed it in its tracks, something recognised before tendering. So, you say, decline the opportunity….. but to which the response was that do that more than once and exclusion from further tenders would follow. Rock and a hard place comes to mind.

 One is left to wonder whether those responsible for creating these tendering processes actually understand the consequences of their actions in their wish to be seen to be blindly following procedures.

Ticking all the boxes…………….. perhaps

A colleague of mine was left to reflect recently on failing to win an appointment to a public sector workplace environment project for which he felt his team more than well qualified to undertake. Discussion by the team after the news was received as to why this had happened led to the conclusion that the brief had been misunderstood, and, simplistically, a product and thus price submitted that the client did not want. Surprising, though, as the team has an international reputation in the sector for which the submission was made, and thus odd that the submission should have been wide of the mark of what the client was apparently wanting.

 Reviewing the result more closely revealed that my colleague’s price (which had been carefully calculated to reflect the services to be provided) was twice the value of the winning bid. Fine, so one could speculate that the winner may have submitted a loss leader, or perhaps discovered a new sharper, and thus cheaper, way to market: but there was, apparently, more than one at this level, so perhaps my colleague’s submission as previously surmised had just not understood the brief. Speculating further on this also led to the natural suggestion that the low prices could possibly also be a reflection of the desperation of some working in this sector of the construction industry to win work at any price, so from my colleague’s point of view, if this was the case, it was just one of things that one had to, philosophically, put down to experience. C’est la vie!

 Reflecting on this over the next few days, however, generated an alternative thought. Perhaps the client’s declared bid evaluation process was configured such that, due to the need to tick boxes and weight the price within the evaluation process to comply with public sector procurement guidelines, the result would deliver a product that whilst meeting the evaluation procedure, quite literally ticking all the boxes, was not however geared to look beyond the concept of a narrowly defined outline brief at what real value could be provided once teams were in a position to build client value into what was being asked for.

 Workplace environments directly affect everybody that works in them, people and premises being inextricably linked in terms of efficiency and effectiveness, and an expression of the organisation’s culture. Getting this complex mix wrong has long been known to mean that staff will move to other employment to improve their working conditions, with significant resultant cost impact due to the loss of continuity of personnel and the associated cost of recruiting and training replacement staff and integrating them into the team. The cost of this is typically considered to be that of a year of a person’s salary. And if one person leaves for this reason, there may well be others that will follow for similar reasons, together with a possible undercurrent of negative energy that can hold back those working in the environment from delivering their full potential. If this is the case, it is one which management may find difficult to address through being fundamentally at the heart of the problem and thus unable to see the issues involved. If the cost of this were to be measured it would be significant, and in the case of public sector environments a waste of tax payers money.

 How is this resolved? By understanding that certain processes at briefing stage, using applied psychology for example, allow an understanding of underlying issues that will create a significantly better and collaborative workplace (i.e. one where working together delivers a greater value than the sum of those working individually). The cost of such techniques can be a fraction of the pay of a member of staff on average earnings, so its cost can be easily justified in terms of retaining existing staff and the potential to deliver even better performance, and importantly, of course, in avoiding the scenario losing staff and generating the associated recruitment and training costs from their replacement. One can only wonder whether those putting together the evaluation criteria for the bid submissions realise the potential wider and longer term consequences and real benefits of creating a working environment rather than just placing furniture in a building and hoping staff will work out the best way of working there.

 The awarding of public sector bids is plainly at the mercy of those who assemble the evaluation processes. Whilst no assessment process can be flawless, some, for what ever reason, seem to be configured to fail in delivering the value that I’m sure was envisaged when the public sector bidding process was set up.

 Recent cases that are worth recounting include an architectural practice that was discounted from being considered for the design of a 25m long swimming pool because the practice had experience of designing and delivering only 50m pools. Surely such more demanding projects would amply qualify the business to be considered, or is there some ill conceived thought that the practice concerned would not understand the cost parameters at a smaller scale, rather than the client considering the potentially enhanced skill sets available through this architect at having had to solve more difficult problems at a larger scale?  Another similarly perplexing example concerns the scoring of a public sector office refurbishment project that required evidence of experience of design and delivery of 4,000-6,500 sq m offices at a value of £4million -£6million, but where it subsequently was found that responses would not be scored for projects of a marginally higher value than this relatively narrow band. Maybe a higher value is simply generated by ‘more of the same’ office environment (for example, another floor) as the one that was being bid, so why preclude it? If real value is to be delivered back into the public sector, particularly in the light of the significant budgetary cuts that are currently being applied to the public sector, then surely such value has the potential to save jobs, perhaps the very jobs of those who create the tick box lists in the first place?

 As a footnote to this item, if in reading this you have come across apparently illogical evaluations of public sector bids that you feel should be publicised, then please post them here as a comment to this blog. They must plainly be capable of being verified, and not just hearsay from a chap you met in the pub!

public sector selection processes…………….

I was left to speculate when reviewing yet another public sector OJEU questionnaire as to whether we are collectively not being treated fairly by the public sector in having to meet so many criteria even to be considered for a project. What prompted this speculation was recent events, very much at the heart of the public sector that would tend to suggest, if a little tongue in cheek, one rule for you, one rule for us.

Imagine for a moment the two C’s having to complete a PQQ for government over the past few days, and wonder how they might have addressed the following typical questions:-

• Please show experience of running a government in the past five years?
• Please list projects where you and your team have worked together successfully in the past?
• Please provide us with your organisations annual accounts for the past three years: please note that this is a pass/fail criteria.

On this basis it would have been unlikely that we would have seen a change of government. Perhaps the selection of consultants in the building industry should also be allowed to undergo a similar process of progressive alliance with clients to deliver a better contractural environment for us all!

failings of free design

A designer was talking to me recently about the stress she was under working for a particular client. The client was being very demanding, making frequent changes and expecting these to be accommodated immediately, and, what’s more, was not being particularly polite or considerate in putting his requests across. The way it was described seemed to me not to be conducive to getting the best out of the situation. From the work I’ve seen, the designer is undoubtedly talented, and patently able to manage projects such as the one on which she was working, so there is unlikely to be any criticism in the level of service being provided. So, yes, these things happen, and receiving a fee for your time means that, sometimes, designers can be given the run around, and that they just have to grin a bear it. However, when the same client then suggests that having looked at the fee schedule that had been submitted and accepted prior to the project progressing, he would like it reduced or forgotten because he was taking a risk on the project and it might not go ahead. Simplistically, he would like the designer to take the risk so that he was not out of pocket. Does the designer under these circumstances continue to provide the same level of service? Professionally, most designers are dedicated to what they do, and will give their all to deliver a quality product and no less so through a strong wish not to disappoint. One thing is for sure though, fee or no fee, professional indemnity still stands. It also seems to be a sad fact that in not paying fees, the client seems to think he can change his mind as and when – paying fees seems to focus the mind.

Being cynical, the client probably knows all this, and so could perhaps be seen to be taking advantage of the commitment of the designer. When the project fails to go ahead (one wonders whether the client’s attitude to other people also involved in the deal may have affected this) it will be the designer who is proportionately more out of pocket than the client.

Some years ago I came across a property developer who, in similar vein, thought that architects should work for no fee on projects that were yet to reach planning stage, ‘sharing the risk’ as he put it. He worked on the hypothesis that after three or four projects, and if he liked what he saw, the architect would then be commissioned to take a project to completion, and ‘share in the benefits of taking a risk’, except that in reality the benefits to the architect would be relatively small compared to those of the developer, and probably spent in preparing the previously failed schemes, if a scheme actually materialised. One wonders whether these self same individuals would take a loaded supermarket trolley to the check out and say that they are thinking about using the store for future purchases, but until the time they had made a decision on this they would take the trolley of food away without paying. I think it unlikely that the individual would get through the checkout before security was called. But of course he would be unlikely to do this, as being a rational and honest person he would recognise that goods have to be paid for, and probably also that paying a little more gets better quality. So why not recognise that paying for design services gets results, and paying for a better quality of service may well deliver considerably better results?

Perhaps the key result out of such situations is a separation in the market. Architects and designers wise enough to say ‘No’ to being unfairly taken advantage of will probably make money out of their commissions, and grow and improve, delivering good quality and successful projects to clients willing to pay agreed fees. Those who frequently work for clients who do not properly compensate them for their time may well find life hard. Worse though, and probably most critical to the whole process, the client may not recognise that by not paying for the services he requires that he may not be maximising the opportunity he is seeking to resolve. This may in part be due to designers cutting corners to minimise their losses and in them possibly not providing the in-depth service that would have otherwise been provided if properly remunerated. It’s quite possible that this process will repeat on successive projects, fundamentally through lack of investment where it counts. What the client might not understand is that paying an increased rate for a more experienced team could shorten the whole process,  and find that the whole process was delivered more economically and of a better quality – but that is always easy in hindsight!

Companies at the top of the FTSE 500 generally recognise that design matters and delivers value to the organisation, paying fees accordingly. Perhaps some of the clients who think that getting design on the cheap should take a leaf from these companies’ books, and perhaps they too then through their success could be ranked similarly, both in status, and profits.

a skills gap of the future?

It is said that an optimist never has a nice surprise, whilst a pessimist wouldn’t know one if he did. Maybe. But somewhere in between are the realists who assess the risks and get on with life, taking opportunities when and where they arise. That’s fine in a business environment where opportunities are presented from various sectors, but at present talk to anyone in the building industry and it seems that most are relying on work being generated by the public sector and having to compete fiercely for it, the private still being in a bad state as we all know due to the behaviour past and present of the banks. The concern is, of course, that whoever wins the UK elections has the hard task of balancing the books, and one thing is for sure, buildings as an easy and big number will be cut from budgets as part of cost savings to be made across each government department, whether it is health, education, defence, or whatever.

All parties recognise the need to get rid of the debt, but this will inevitably take some years, and indeed it will be many years until the economy is operating at an acceptably palatable level when compared with that before the world fell off the edge of the economic cliff. For the building industry it is going to be hard. Whilst there will be some large scale infrastructure projects, such as the potential high speed rail link from London to the north, or the new Forth crossing in Scotland, these will not only mean less capital for other work from the defined budget available, but that this work will be undertaken by a few very large companies, meaning the remaining companies will be competing for smaller scale projects in a much contracted market. At the extreme, there may be so little work that many may disappear, leaving a depleted industry unable to respond when demand picks up. And never mind that the building industry itself has been a big contributor to the economy in the past.

The public sector cannot buy its way out of this economic situation as the money to fund capital projects has to be funded through tax, and sufficient tax can only be generated when the private sector is active. The question is therefore as to when private companies can create this, as it will need a tax environment that encourages business. To add to this poor outlook, private sector companies, even if doing well, may not want to take on the liability of building real estate because of continuing concerns about the future. The risk to the building industry is that with neither public nor private sectors willing to commit to building that the building industry will continue to shrink to a position where it may be difficult to respond quickly to growth when this arrives.

 One could take the philosophical view that everything will revert to normal in due course, but that ignores what is happening almost invisibly in the building industry as a consequence of the shortfall of work over the recent past, and that is the loss of skills.

 Building professionals have seen large numbers lose their jobs, and students training specifically to enter the industry unable to find work (for example, architecture students who take seven years to qualify and could not have seen this situation coming when they embarked on their course). Many of these will remain in this situation through lack of practice, age, or experience, or through finding other employment, those still seeking employment very possibly being usurped by younger, cheaper, candidates as and when work picks up because they will accept lower pay. It is also so with building trades, where apprentices are now no longer being taken on by companies due to lack of work and a desire by contractors to minimise staff costs. Wind this forward five years to 2015, when some forecast the UK may be functioning more normally, and in addition, on the assumption of those working in the industry having a working life of, say, forty years, approximately twelve per cent may have retired allowing natural wastage to take its toll in downsizing. Yes, this will provide a leaner, meaner, industry, but one that may have well have lost the essential skills at the upper end and experience necessary to run important projects, or the ability importantly to pass these skills onto younger staff, with the potential for costly mistakes, and insurance claims to keep lawyers in business.

The fundamental consequence is that buildings and infrastructure will be affected, these being  important tools in all business operations, their design being integral to the efficiency and effective of any business. If these are not available, or cannot be suitably modernised, business will be affected detrimentally, output will not be maximised, thus reducing tax revenue, in turn slowing the recovery in the UK, leaving the country further behind its European neighbours.

 It is therefore essential that the next government, of whatever colour, recognises that building must continue at all scales to maintain the sector and the skills that it has so that these are widely available when the economy revives or it will seriously affect the speed and the ability at which the country can respond.

the innovation contradiction

It took a while for the uncomfortable feeling in my head to rationalise into logical thought over questions in a recent prequalification questionnaire for a public sector building project. Simplistically, the questionnaire was driven by the originator’s wish to remove risk from the project, questions specifically concentrating on this subject. Fine, and understandable. No client wants risk on a project, particularly financial. But then a question was asked about seeking innovative solutions – innovative being a term for the  introduction of new ideas and methods. Genuinely new ideas, introduced into any environment, are, per se, untried in practice, and must therefore carry risk. Catch 22. Remove risk, but we want to be innovative. Is this equivalent to ‘I want to be leading edge, but want to know someone has tried this before’? Is this thus innovative – or just plagarism?

 I’ll come back to you when I’ve worked this one out!