黑洞社区

Procurement body UK SBS has defended its conduct in awarding a troubled 拢750m public sector framework to more than a dozen consultants in June, in its ongoing legal battle with Turner & Townsend.

Turner & Townsend (T&T) lodged a legal challenge in the High Court in July against the award of the four-year Project Management and Full Design Team Services framework by UK SBS, claiming rival firms used 鈥減rice manipulation鈥� to win places on the framework.

T&T was among a number of major firms to lose out on places on the UK lots of the framework, which was provisionally awarded in June. In its defence, seen by 黑洞社区, UK SBS says it acted lawfully and undertook 鈥減roper application [鈥�] of the transparent and objective price evaluation and scoring methodology鈥�.

T&T鈥檚 legal challenge claimed 鈥渕any of the winning bidders鈥� undertook price and 鈥渟coring manipulation鈥� in order to secure higher marks. It claimed UK SBS failed to recognise and investigate this and failed to investigate 鈥渁bnormally low鈥� pricing.

T&T claimed rivals manipulated UK SBS鈥� scoring system - which was based solely on prices submitted for consultancy services in the South-east - by providing 鈥渧ery low prices for the South-east鈥� and 鈥渧ery high upwards adjustments to those prices for regional work鈥�. T&T said this was despite the fact regional work ought to be cheaper.

UK SBS鈥檚 defence says it never promised to exclude abnormally low bids, but that nevertheless it sought written response from 11 bidders who had submitted prices that appeared low and was satisfied none should be rejected.

The procurement body admits all but two of the winning bidders offered regionally adjusted prices that were 鈥済enerally higher than their South-east prices鈥�.

But UK SBS鈥� defence says T&T鈥檚 claim it was 鈥渋mproper鈥� for bidders to provide upward regional variations in pricing is 鈥渆mbarrassingly pleaded鈥� - legal shorthand for being unclear about what is alleged - 鈥渁nd is anyway denied鈥�.

T&T鈥檚 evidence against bidders it suspects of price and scoring manipulation was contained in a confidential annex to its court papers not seen by 黑洞社区.

Consultants Capita, Jacobs, Mace, Pick Everard and Mott MacDonald were among the big winners, landing spots on all four lots. According to scorecards for the UK lots seen by 黑洞社区 in June, Mace won all four lots on pricing. 黑洞社区 is unaware of which firm or firms are the subject of T&T鈥檚 allegations of price mainpulation.

Turner & Townsend and UK SBS declined to comment.