Highways England will be engaging with its supply chain during February and March to support the development of a new procurement model to deliver its Smart Motorways Programme.
The government-owned company has published a prior information notice (PIN) seeking expressions of interest by 8 February from firms wanting to participate in the engagement exercise, which will include market sounding workshops, information sessions and written feedback from the market.
Workshops will be jointly coordinated with the support of key industry bodies such as the Institution of Civil Engineers and the Civil Engineering Contractors Association.
Highways England will be sharing ‘dialogue points’ with the market for discussion during the engagement process via email in advance to all registered interested suppliers.
The new procurement model for the Smart Motorways Programme falls under the wider Routes to Market (RtM) programme, which is designing and developing procurement vehicles that will replace the Collaborative Delivery Framework (CDF), which will reach its headline (financial) value in 2018.
It proposes new ways of working between Highways England and the supply chain, ‘drawing on an incentive-driven commercial model & maturing towards an integrated operating model’.
The aim of the new model is to enable Highways England to achieve its ambitions for the strategic road network through securing a sustainable supply chain by developing close, more collaborative and longer-lasting relationships with suppliers – helping to deliver “whole-life” value to its contracts.
The PIN stresses that it is not itself a call for competition. The RtM procurements will be launched by the publication of a Contract Notice in May 2018 (estimated date). Non-participation in the market sounding exercise will not prevent any supplier from participating in the procurement process.
To register your interest in participating in the engagement exercise, please send an email to RTMYourQuestions@highwaysengland.co.uk, with the following information by 5 pm on 8 February (registrations of interest cannot be received after this date):
— Organisation name, website and key contact details,
— Organisation size / turnover,
— Industry / sector specialism,
— Areas of experience / expertise.
