3P plan to bolster region’s civil engineering recovery

A “three P” formula to speed recovery of North East England’s still struggling civil engineering industry is to be applied through the region’s Civil Engineering Contractors’ Association by its newly elected chairman.

Chris Dancer, managing director also of Northumbrian Roads based at Prudhoe in Northumberland, intends to focus CECA (North East) endeavours on Procurement, Payment and Prosperity during his two year term of office.

He has told fellow bosses of the association’s 73 member firms situated between Berwick and Whitby that while procurement, and especially pre-qualification (PQQ) – a questionnaire stage preceding a call or invitation to tender (ITT) - generates competing offers from different bidders, it can also cause costly time wasting.

He explained: “Pre-qualification is now part of life but often takes up too much time to no end. Sometimes an award means nothing, especially once a stage is reached when the company or public body finalising its contract reduces the bidding contractors to a smaller number that will finally compete.

“I want to see PQQs streamlined by having one accreditation body cover the bidders’ financial standing, quality and health and safety. This process should be reviewed annually, so if you’ve got it you can move straight onto site-specific elements.”

He described the North East Purchasing Organisation portal (NEPO) as having “a bit of a chequered history, especially at the final stage”. He added: “I want dialogue opened with them to create a PQQ system easier for companies to work to.”

NEPO, set up in 1976 to aggregate contracts and pool purchasing knowledge and expertise, is led by a joint committee drawn from members of the North East’s local authorities. Mr Dancer said his own firm’s experiences with NEPO are prompting his crusade. He admitted: “It won’t be easy to change things but we shall try.”

He is inviting member firms to detail their experiences and information regarding portal tendering, and the practice of pre-qualifying and tendering electronically.

With findings that follow he hopes dialogue with NEPO can reduce the questions around quality in favour of greater emphasis on a small number of standard but scheme-specific questions. “These would remove the subjective nature of evaluation following the invitation to tender stage, and so reduce the number of standstill period challenges,” he explained.

Mr Dancer is convinced greater use and cross-referencing of information already to hand could avoid process duplication at the actual PQQ stage.

On speedier payment for completion of contracts generally, he says it is time poor payment tactics and practices ceased. He points out: “A new construction payment charter, the Fair Payment Commitment, is being rolled out now with a view to starting next January 1. Eleven fair payment commitments are listed there to reduce the waits for payment - with 45 days the targeted maximum by June 2015, and 30 days by 2018.

“It is good the list of major contractors starting to sign up is growing steadily. I want to see all CECA members signing up also, improving the business practices within CECA (NE) membership too.”

Greater prosperity, he said, will require suicide bidding to end, allowing enough workload to go round, and enough profit made for firms to recruit and train people confidently, invest in new equipment – and still be able to pay VAT bills on time.“

Mr Dancer became managing director of Northumbrian Roads in 2000 – 10 years after joining the business. His 35 years’ experience in civils work started when he was 16. His major project involvements have included infrastructure for Tyne and Wear Metro, Nissan car plant and high speed test track at Sunderland, and work on the A1 and A69 roads.

He succeeds John Dickson, chairman of Owen Pugh Group, whose term as CECA (NE) chairman has now ended. Mr Dickson has been made an honorary life member of the regional body, marking his contribution.

CECA (NE) is one of three bodies working together in the region to promote its civil engineering sector. The others are the Institution of Civil Engineers and the Association of Civil Engineers.

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