A PREQUALIFIED SUCCESS a

Question: How can the Government devise a more cost-effective way of awarding contracts, and save acres of rainforest into the bargain? Answer: Produce a standard document for its qualifying and pre-qualifying stages.

This is the message the National Contractors Group will soon be hammering home to sponsoring Ministers at the Department of the Environment. It is also set to become one of the central planks in Sir Michael Latham's final report come July.

Judging by the responses Contract Journal elicited with its recent survey on procurement (5 May), simplification of these arrangements can not come a moment too soon. There is a crying need to streamline what has become a nightmare process in the decentralised post-PSA world. From the first phase of expenditure by contractors - producing a brochure that explains why you alone are suited to perform the work - through to the final whittling away and emergence as winner, each tenderer will spend thousands of pounds. Multiply this by all the contractors who expressed initial interest and the overall cost may be hundreds of thousands of pounds. To highlight just one absurdity, a recent MoD design and build project, it is said, cost each bidding contractor over œ250,000. Little wonder that the desire for a standard method of public procurement emerged as one of the strongest messages from the CJ survey.

Standard Government forms served their purpose well enough for decades before being jettisoned a couple of years back. Their return would present no problems - but offer many obvious advantages. And contractors who claim that a standard approach would militate against the more lateral thinking tenderer, who welcomes his chance to react individually to client requirements and thus differentiate himself, are missing the point. They would still have every opportunity to offer cost-saving alternatives.

This is an exciting opportunity to produce a recognised route to pre-qualification and qualification that applies across the whole public sector. It would ill behove a Government that has made such play of its support for Construction to baulk the industry now.