Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 12 February 2013
326. Deputy Terence Flanagan asked the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform if it will be possible to reintroduce nominated supply packages within public and private sector contracts; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [6874/13]
View answerThe Government Departments and Local Authority (GDLA) form of contract, which preceded the Public Works Contracts, included a provision for the nomination of certain specialist sub-contractors and suppliers. In order to facilitate the nomination process, estimates were included in the tender documents for the main contractor to cover the works packages to be undertaken by the specialist sub-contractor or supplies in the case of the specialist supplier. These estimates, known as Prime Cost or PC Sums, were based upon a quotation for the works or supply concerned or upon typical rates for the work or supply already known to the design team. Separate tenders for these specialist works or supplies packages were undertaken and, based upon the outcome of the tender, the successful sub-contractor or supplier was ‘nominated’ to the already appointed main contractor by way of an instruction from the Architect named in the contract. That instruction included direction to the main contractor to expend the PC Sum and provision was made for an adjustment to the contract sum depending on whether the tender for the particular package was greater or less than the PC Sum.
One of the key requirements of the Government’s Construction Procurement Reform Initiative is to ensure greater cost certainty at contract award stage and in order to meet this requirement it was decided to dispense with the nomination of specialist sub-contractors and suppliers because the final contract sum could not be established until well after the main contractor was appointed. This places the onus on the appointed design team to ensure that reasonably detailed information is supplied as part of the tender documents to ensure that the tenders received reflect the quality of installation required.
Contracting authorities may ensure that quality specialist sub-contractors are employed on public works contracts by requiring such specialists to pre-qualify with the main contractor. This is achieved by naming particular specialist works areas in the pre-qualification documents. The main contractor must name one specialist in their Form of Tender for each of the specialist works areas defined by the contracting authority.
