Minister witnesses signing of Memorandum of Understanding
In a formal ceremony at the Institute of Civil Engineers, Westminster, Nick Raynsford MP, Minister for Construction, today witnessed the signing of the memorandum of understanding between Dorset County Council and consultant engineers Buro Happold.
In a new approach to providing local highways transportation design services, the agreement enables Dorset Council's own designers, Dorset Engineering Consultancy, to work closely with Buro Happold to provide professional services, not only within Dorset but elsewhere.
Following the signing, Nick Raynsford commented, “ Partnership is key to new ways of working between public and private sectors. The process will assist local authorities to maximise the use of their in-house resources in partnership with the private sector - as seen today in the signing of the memorandum of understanding between Dorset County Council and Buro Happold. The Government wishes the two partners to this initiative every success, and sees its work as a valuable contribution to the modernisation of public services and the construction industry.” This innovative way of working will allow Dorset County Council to benefit by reducing the need to invite consultants to submit tenders for work packages - always a costly and time consuming exercise, for both public and private sector. This is one more way that the Council is meeting its obligation to deliver 'best value' services to the people of Dorset.
Michael White, Head of Highways and Transportation, Dorset County Council, said “the arrangement demonstrates that private sector companies can add value to council services. This new approach is just the sort of innovation that the Government is keen for local authorities to introduce, in a move away from Compulsory Competitive Tendering and towards Best Value.”
Michael Winter, Dorset Engineering Consultancy's Manager said “Organisations tend to run well if there is a steady flow of work. This partnership enables us to seek help from Buro Happold when we have peaks and to do work for them when we have troughs.” The partnership arrangements will be monitored by the Governments own consultants and regularly reviewed by councillors.
Buro Happold Partner, Terry Ealey is impressed and extremely pleased that Dorset County Council is willing to try a new approach to providing highways transportation design services. He added “We have worked in partnership with the British Airports Authority for a number of years and the good relationship that has developed through this partnership has led to us reducing our charges. We are sure there will be similar benefits to working closely with Dorset. We are particularly looking forward to an exchange of skills and experience with Dorset's engineers.”
Note to editors
1. Dorset Engineering Consultancy (DEC) is part of the Highways and Transportation unit which provides the professional civil and structural engineering, street lighting and transportation services necessary to enable the highway network in Dorset to be maintained and improved.
2. Buro Happold is a multi-disciplinary international practice of consulting engineers established in 1976 offering civil and structural engineering, mechanical and electrical engineering, quantity surveying, building services and environmental engineering, infrastructure and traffic engineering, geotechnical engineering, façade engineering, fire engineering, Computational Fluid Dynamics analysis, access consultancy, project management, urban design and a range of specialist CAD services.
3 This agreement is a response to the Government's Rethinking Construction Report, which highlighted growing dissatisfaction with construction services in general among both private and public sector clients. The Report recommended that tendering be replaced with forging long-term alliances that bring mutual benefits.
