Birmingham Breakfast - 15th February

Today's FBE Meeting was delivered by Neil Vicker, Senior Procurement Estates Manager from the Ministry of Justice (MOJ).  He came to talk to the 80+ strong group about the strategy for procurement and gave a little insight into what they are looking for in their partners.

The MOJ was formed in 2007, and has an estate of 2000 buildings including 193 prisons across the UK with a value of £9bn.  They receive their procurement strategy rules direct from Government and include aspects such as, 20% cost reduction, skills development, cost and price benchmarking, supplier relationship management and use of BIM.  The MOJ are aiming to be at level 2 by mid 2013, pilot projects have been launched in the past few weeks, with full use of BIM in 2015.

It was good to see lots of contractors at the meeting and many of which are currently in the bidding process for the various frameworks, which the MOJ are procuring for. The new frameworks will be 6 years in duration, with 5 suppliers on regional (150K - £10m) frameworks, and 6 suppliers nationally (over £10m) Hoping that the new framework will be in place by April 2012.

The aims of new framework are, better for less, to deliver yearly savings of 9% year on year.  Future considerations for buildings include projects should achieve a BREEAM excellent rating, lower capital costs in evaluations, earlier involvement in design, to obtain benefits in build ability and cost savings.

Neil said "It's an exiting time ahead with lots of challenges, and are keen to work with clients in collaboration."

There were numerous questions from the floor to Neil, which provided further insight into the procurement strategy.  The winner for the champagne draw was Richard Pilsbury from DBK Group.