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The Civil Engineering Contractors Association (CECA) has published its response to a Competition & Markets Authority’s (CMA) market study.

The CMA published an interim report on its civil engineering market study setting in December out its emerging findings and possible remedies. The government had tasked the CMA six months earlier with suggesting how things might be done better in the rail and road civil engineering market

The interim report said that market problems stemmed from poor procurement practices and invited comment on how it might be improved.

CECA’s response suggest that contractors are broadly happy with recent developments in procurement – notably early contractor involvement and the rise of frameworks – but want it more and faster.

They also ask for clients to be more rational and consistent in how they measure and value the intangibles within their specifications, such as carbon reduction and social value.

The association makes the following recommendations to the CMA study: 

• Improve pipeline certainty to help firms plan participation without excessive bid intensity or market churn.
• The UK civil engineering ecosystem would benefit from greater use of early contractor involvement, outcome-based specifications and a move away from procurement that focuses on lowest-price weighting at the expense of whole-life value.
• Procurement frameworks should be based on clear, funded pipelines that deliver minimum workload commitments and limit unnecessary secondary competition and red-tape, and recognised SME specialisms.
• Improve the assessment of quality, deliverability, safety cultures, carbon reduction and social value. These criteria must be meaningfully weighted, objectively assessed and consistently applied.
• Increase investment in commercial and engineering skills, the sharing of regional and devolved national expertise, the better use of delivery partners, and standardised performance data sharing.
• Streamlining regulatory approvals for new products and techniques – through clearer guidance, faster decision-making and consistent national standards – which would accelerate innovation adoption.

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