Majors line up for £3bn ProCure21 Plus framework

Bouygues, Willmott Dixon, Morgan Ashurst, Carillion, Wates and Skanska are expected to join the race for the £3bn ProCure21 Plus framework deal.

The Department of Health (DH) fired the starter’s pistol last week issuing an OJEU notice for the four year framework, which gives contractors until July 9 to place their bids.

The deal promises contractors up to £750m of work a year under the framework and is expected to attract significant interest.  DH is expecting between forty to fifty “credible responses, according to industry sources. The Department will draw up a shortlist of around fifteen firms, finally choosing between eight and twelve contractors for the framework.

All eight firms on the current ProCure21 framework are expected to bid. These are Balfour Beatty; Costain; HBG; Integrated Health Projects; Interserve Health (Norwest Holst/Robert McAlpine); Kier; Laing O’Rourke; and Medicinq (Midas Construction, Geoffrey Osborne and Simons Construction).

Firms that failed to make the grade for the first framework are also expected to throw their hats in the ring, such as Skanska and Bovis Lend Lease. Wates is also expected to bid, despite dropping out of the first P21 framework. Wates attended the recent ProCure21 Plus bidders’ day.

However one health contractor warned that a final line up of 12 could see future P21Plus work spread thinly.

He commented: “The new framework promisess up to £750m a year but that is very unlikely in the current climate particularly with the prospect of a new Government that will slash public spending. So we could see a repeat of the early days of the original framework with just a couple of firms getting most of the work and others getting fed up and throwing in the towel.”