
The Environment Agency’s (EA) six-year programme allocated £5.2bn specifically to help strengthen the UK’s flood and coastal erosions defenses. David Llewellyn, head of construction and infrastructure at Pagabo, explains how projects can be procured in a way that makes the most of this one-off funding without sacrificing the quality required to solve one of the public sector’s most pressing infrastructure challenges today.
It’s important for all public sector projects to be delivered on time, but when it comes to flood and coastal protection schemes, the need for speed is increasingly clear. Between October 2022 and March 2024, England experienced its wettest 18 months since records began in 1836, with the effects of flooding and coastal erosion impacting everything from our roads and infrastructure to the safety of people’s homes.
Unfortunately, many issues surrounding the wider planning and construction sector also apply to these specialist protective programmes. Supply chain complexities and rising costs often lead to huge delays – an example that was seen in the Bridgwater Tidal Barrier job, which felt the brunt of cost material inflation and required governmental sign off. To go towards overcoming these pressures, funding is there in the form of The Environment Agency’s (EA) six-year programme, which launched in 2019 to allocate £5.2bn – with £2bn of this to be delivered through local authorities.
Frameworks have long existed to make procurement simple, even for specialist projects like these and with a deadline of 2027 to make the most of this funding, there are certain elements to look out for when choosing a procurement partner to ensure that schemes are delivered effectively, before time runs out.
Combining experience with innovation
Although the urgency surrounding flood and coastal protection schemes is growing in intensity, the need for solutions in this space is not a new concept. As such, there are numerous highly trained and skilled contractors and consultants that can use their years of tried and tested experience to support some of the most at-risk areas across the UK. However, like many problems, this level of legacy experience isn’t enough to solve the ongoing problem as it’s exacerbated by new and changing complexities arising from the ever-changing nature of climate change. It’s important to consider a healthy mix of smaller, newer contractors and talent that can also offer access to the types of innovations that could prove fundamental to success in these cases.
Accessing this type of specialist skillset – whether garnered from years of experience or through R&D – can typically take up lots of time and resources but the right framework can speed this up dramatically. While it may be tempting for a local authority to consider its usual route to market, using the same procurement methods that worked for previous infrastructure projects but ‘bending’ them to fit, it pays to look further for something more specialist. Expanding your search beyond your usual route to market also means you’ll have greater access to contractors with the time and resources to complete a project on time, and to a high quality – rather than struggling to keep up when already at capacity.
Our Civil Engineering and Infrastructure framework at Pagabo, for example, was designed specifically to support water works, such as sea defences and flood alleviation, and 39% of our awarded suppliers are SMEs, meaning there’s ample opportunity to access contractors of varying skillsets to help tackle any particular project or challenge. Equally, when using our Professional Services framework, users also have access to our team’s years of experience in consultant engagement, document preparation and more, simplifying projects and ensuring compliance as these elements become even more important with the changes to the Building Safety Act to consider.
Frameworks help to plug the gap and bolster the work of time-poor and budget-strapped local authorities – with more problems to tackle than ever before – with quick access to targeted support, rather than acting as a sticky plaster that soon won’t be fit for purpose.
Simplicity at the core
Time is always of the essence but that too should never come to the detriment of quality or compliance. Lack of time is another reason why local authorities may be likely to consider using their existing frameworks to procure for flood management projects too, rather than risk jumping through lengthy hoops to get a project to contract with a new provider. In the end, however, this could cause further delays down the line when the contractor isn’t quite the right fit for the job.
Simplicity and transparency are important in procurement, and can be facilitated by choosing a framework provider that does much of the compliance groundwork for you, via due diligence checks that are awarded to each successful supplier. Add to this a mixture of options covering direct award and further competition, and it soon becomes far easier to get new projects off the ground, at speed and scale.
From selecting the most appropriate standard contract – such as Main Option C under NEC being helpful for large-scale emergency works like the flood alleviation works in Whaley Bridge in recent years – to managing project programmes compliantly, contract management also needs to be carefully considered, with systems that integrate with procurement processes like Sypro being advisable.
Throughout it all, a consultative approach from the framework provider can also support everything from ensuring budgets are used in the most effective way to drafting business cases and overseeing a project’s compliance – especially important at a time when changes are being made to legislation such as the forthcoming Procurement Act, having that expert guidance along the way can keep all projects on track, backed up by safety and quality assurance.
Showcasing the added value
Underpinning every flood and coastal defense project is the need to drive social value, even more so as the priorities shared in the new Procurement Act mark a shift from ‘Most Economically Advantageous Tender’ (MEAT) to ‘Most Advantageous Tender’ (MAT). This essentially moves from a ‘best price’ to ‘best value’ model.
This should now form an essential part of every local authority procurement project as teams invest in new solutions that improve the region’s facilities. But with flood controls in particular, which are needed due to growing climate change concerns, there will be more elements to juggle within the ‘most advantageous’ bracket along with priorities like decarbonisation to really deliver the most appropriate and impactful outcomes.
Measurement tools such as Loop can help to forecast and monitor the social impact lifecycle of every project, making reporting on and documenting outcomes far simpler.
Frameworks are now a chosen route to procurement for many public sector projects. Yet as more come to market it’s important to understand the difference, and the unique advantages that each one presents to save time and put the government’s unique funding pot to its best possible use.
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