The chief executive of the Civil Engineering Contractors Association (CECA) has warned that contract frameworks are not being used to their full potential to boost collaboration and productivity in the sector.
Speaking at the annual Road Safety Markings Association conference, Alasdair Reisner (pictured) made the case for more strategic and structural collaboration in the sector - suggesting that frameworks were a vastly unused method to deliver this.
He argued that highway funding was predicted to remain 'flat' for the short to medium term and called for more collaboration along the lines of the Project 13 initiative.
Project 13 was launched by the Infrastructure Client Group (ICG) and the Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE).
It aims to move infrastructure delivery away from a transactional approach to an enterprise model, which brings together owners, partners, advisers and suppliers into integrated teams based on long-term arrangements.
Asked by Highways about the rise in the use of frameworks in recent years and whether this could be used to replicate the enterprise model, Mr Reisner suggested very few had moved beyond a transactional platform.
'The evidence suggests there are good frameworks and bad frameworks,' he said.
'When a good framework is working, what it does is it delivers a long-term programme and certainty that allows you to invest in teams. If it has the incentivisation model right it means [more] collaboration and all parties working together. That's what it is supposed to work like, but I have seen relatively few frameworks out there that actually operate on that basis.
'The problem is, a lot of frameworks are select lists in name only - and it is just mini-competitions, no guaranteed workload and the workload does not always materialise.
'There is definitely a model there. We are seeing local and regional bodies picking up on Project 13 so I think we will see versions of it, particularly in local authorities where there seems to be quite a lot of interest, put it in as part of frameworks going forward.'
