New National Consultancy frameworks, which will replace the current Built Environment Consultancy Services (BECS) framework, are due to be re-procured in 2020.

One framework will cover England, Wales and Northern Ireland, and the second will be dedicated to serve Scotland.

Accessible to any public sector organisation in Scotland, the Scape Procure Scotland Consultancy framework will offer the broadest range of professional services available in the market, with an upper value of £300 million. Together, the two frameworks will have a combined value of £1 billion. These will be direct award frameworks, with each lot led by an industry-leading player supported by an extensive local supply chain, whose expertise will drive forward public sector projects at pace.

Each lot provides specialist support in the areas of built environment consultancy, civil engineering and infrastructure consultancy and asset management respectively, giving clients access to comprehensive consultancy services that meet their individual needs.

The services available across the Scottish framework include, but are not limited to, project management, quantity surveying, building surveying, commercial surveying, architecture and design services, civil and structural engineering and infrastructure consultancy, electrical and mechanical engineering, health and safety, highways consultancy and engineering services and strategic asset management.

The framework will be open to individual organisations and consortium bids and will run for a period of four years from August 2020. The framework will include lots for:

 Scape’s Prior Information Notice (PIN) for the new framework will be published online on August 27 via the Public Contracts Scotland procurement platform. A market awareness day will be held in Edinburgh in September, where interested companies can request 1:1 meetings.

An OJEU Contract Notice will be published later this year with preferred bidders announced in summer 2020. The new framework will allow the successful delivery partner(s) a full mobilisation period to establish methods, processes and time to train their teams, ready to engage with clients and take project enquiries as the current national framework moves towards expiry in October 2020.

Mark Robinson, Scape Group chief executive, said: “The public sector is operating in a much tougher economic environment and is being pushed to deliver more with fewer resources. We are committed to supporting our clients and evolving our services to better meet their changing needs, while ensuring value for money and efficient delivery of their projects.

“The decision to widen the remit of our consultancy offer has been taken following thorough market analysis and client consultation, at the same time we have created a dedicated £300m Scottish framework in response to the strong and growing pipeline of consultancy projects in Scotland. The appointed delivery partner(s) will work closely with the local supply chain networks to facilitate access to local companies, and to maximise local spend. To date, the BECS framework has engaged with over 335 SMEs through its extensive supply chain. We expect the new frameworks to expand on this success with our broadened range of services.” 

The current BECS framework, led by Perfect Circle – a consortium comprising Pick Everard, Gleeds and AECOM, has been commercially successful, and it is projected to reach its value of £350m. To date, there have been over 1,000 commissions secured through the framework, with a total combined value of over £220m. The current framework will run until October 2020.

For full details of the timescale and further information on the Scottish consultancy framework procurement, visit www.scapegroup.co.uk.