Partnering helps projects finish on time and to budget

The adoption of partnering and collaborative approaches in their construction work has helped government departments and agencies complete more projects to time and cost and to deliver real savings.

That is the welcome conclusion by the National Audit Office (NAO) in a report looking at the construction delivery performances of agencies and departments.

Improving Public Services through Better Construction, the follow-up to the NAO’s report Modernising Construction from 2001, reveals that between April 2003 and December 2004 55% of construction projects were delivered to budget compared with 25% in 1999.

And, so says the report published yesterday (Tuesday), 63% of projects were delivered to time compared with 34% in 1999.

A range of value for money gains including streamlined procurement processes, innovative solutions to the design and delivery of construction projects and improved whole life costs are the main factors.

Based on NAO estimates, between £500m and £2.6bn in annual public sector construction expenditure could be saved if similar good practice was applied across all of the public sector. 

However, departments and their agencies need to develop further their and their partners’ construction delivery performance to improve the quality of public services and the efficiency with which they are delivered. 

The report also makes nine recommendations to departments, including the need for them to create more certainty in the market by providing longer-term funding to maximise the benefits of collaborative working; to strengthen the leadership of construction programmes and projects and; put in place strategies for developing construction management capabilities, to manage their construction activities in light of the government’s aims for sustainable development and to make construction procurement decisions based on whole life value.