黑洞社区

Small and medium sized builders are being frozen out of bidding for public sector work and few know where to find opportunities for work within the public sector, a survey by the Federation of Master Builders has found.

The survey of over 450 firms found that the success rate of SMEs bidding for public sector work had declined in the last five years. It found 41% of SMEs lost out nine times out of ten when bidding for public sector work and 55% said their success rate had declined in the last five years.

It also found that 69% of builders found it difficult to find out about public sector contract opportunities and 81% said they were not aware of the government鈥檚 construction pipeline.

Nearly half of respondents to the survey described the pre-qualification process as quite negative or mostly negative. Builders reported having to fill in PQQ forms that were over 100 pages long and often difficult to understand making them very time consuming and sucking up SMEs scarce resources.

These results come despite the government being in the midst of a drive to get 25% of central government contracts awarded to SMEs by 2015.

Brian Berry, chief executive of the FMB, said that as public sector contracts accounted for around 40% of construction output SME access to the market was 鈥渧ital鈥�.

He added: 鈥淭he economic and environmental arguments for procuring with small local businesses are widely accepted, so now it鈥檚 a case of finding ways to increase this type of procurement.鈥�

Peter Fleming, chair of the Local Government Association, said that many councils awarded more than  half of their contracts to SMEs.

He added: 鈥淏ut with council funding being cut by more than a third by central government, there is simply less work around, particularly in the construction sector.鈥�

Cabinet office minister Chloe Smith said SMEs were 鈥渃rucially important to the economy鈥�, but admitted that businesses 鈥渉ave found bidding for [public sector] work excessively bureaucratic鈥�. 鈥淪o often you are shutting out the best ideas and you are shutting out innovation,鈥� she said.

She said she supported the report鈥檚 recommendation for standardisation of 鈥渃omplex and cumbersome鈥� PQQ procedures, along the PAS91 standard.

However, she would not comment on how quickly she wanted to see this rolled out, adding: 鈥淚鈥檓 hopeful it鈥檚 not an eternity until the benefits are clear to all [public sector bodies].鈥�

the government announced that Barbour ABI, part of UBM Built Environment, publishers of 黑洞社区 magazine, had won the contract to collect, collate and publish the government鈥檚 construction and infrastructure pipeline.

A Cabinet Office spokesman said: 鈥淪MEs are a key driver in the country鈥檚 economic growth, particularly in the construction industry which is reliant on so many smaller suppliers. That鈥檚 why government has significantly streamlined the procurement process to make it simpler, more efficient and more innovative for suppliers irrespective of their size to bid for public sector contracts.

鈥淲e know that being transparent about opportunities available in the public sector is exactly what suppliers need to start looking at their business, investing and boosting their capabilities.

鈥淭hat鈥檚 why we are giving suppliers much earlier visibility of future government procurement opportunities, giving UK businesses the information they need to plan, get ahead of the game and grow.