Construction clients have been urged to sign up to new proposals that will target the estimated £250m cost to the industry each year from unnecessary pre-qualification.
The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills has launched PAS 91:2010 Construction-Related Procurement – Pre-Qualification Questionnaires, a document that provides a standard way of asking a series of key pre-qualification questions.
In the past, there have been many attempts to rationalise the PQQ process, but contractors still face a multitude of different forms, requiring firms to laboriously fill out each one individually, despite the fact that much of the information being asked for will be similar from questionnaire to questionnaire.
PAS 91 sets a standard way of asking those core questions that will be common to most or all pre-qualification exercises. By standardising these questions, contractors can simply drop in a pre-prepared response to these sections, allowing them to concentrate on the project specific elements of the questionnaire.
PAS 91 has been developed over the last year by BSi, working with representatives from the industry’s clients, trade bodies and accreditation organisations.
Rosemary Beales, national director for the Civil Engineering Contractors Association (CECA), said: “PAS 91 arrives at a crucial moment for an industry that is being pushed to demonstrate greater and greater efficiencies. PAS 91 is the key that could unlock hundreds of millions worth of savings that can be reinvested back in real construction, helping to provide the growth needed in the economy.
“It is vital that clients across the industry act now to ensure their pre-qualification questionnaires comply with PAS 91. Having worked with some of the industry’s other leading trade bodies to help develop PAS 91, over the next year we will be campaigning – both nationally and through our regional structure – to ensure that it is used by all of the clients in our sector.”
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