EFCA European Federation of Engineering Consultancy Associations FIDIC 2005 Yann Leblais EFCA President Quality in Procurement Beijing Hotel, Beijing - China 7 September 2005

2 EFCA on Quality Outcomes in the EU Former and present European Commission policies Elements of a quality debate

3 Former and Present European Commission policies Reform of EC external assistance management: –essential element = deconcentration Commission 1999 – 2004: –putting rules in place and horizontal approach Commission 2004 – 2009: –focus on output and quality

4 Elements of a quality debate 1.Dissemination of information to tenderers 2.Evaluation criteria: too much CV-based 3.Adequate project budgets 4.Same rules for all? 5.Validity of references 6.Definition of conflict of interest

5 Dissemination of information to tenderers (1) Problem description: EC prohibits contacts between tenderers and contracting authorities and EC Delegations Consequently: Quality of proposals decline as the clients needs are not enough known and taken into account Consultants locally present are favoured

6 Dissemination of information to tenderers (2) EFCA recommendation: (Optional) Site visits and clarification meetings (should be the rule for short-listed firms) All documents available should be at the disposal at such clarification meetings Minutes of clarification meetings should be sent to all tenderers

7 Evaluation criteria too much CV- based (1) Problem description: EC requires a minimum of 5 years experience Consequently: Unbalanced age and experience structure in consulting firms In the long run shortage of knowledge and skills

8 Evaluation criteria too much CV- based (2) EFCA recommendation: Develop and implementation of a Junior Expert Programme Additional budgets for young professionals to cover costs on specific projects

9 Adequate project budgets (1) Problem description: Project budgets are sometimes too tight Consequently: Firms cannot commit a majority of permanent staff, including junior staff Therefore, company development and experience is hampered

10 Adequate project budgets (2) EFCA recommendation: Project budgets should be drawn up to allow deployment of a majority of permanent staff

11 Same rules for all? (1) Problem description: Following deconcentration, differences in interpretation of rules by Delegations Consequently: 120 interpretation centres instead of implementation centres Documents in various languages are not identical At their discretion Delegations add specific administrative requirements to tender/award process

12 Same rules for all? (2) EFCA recommendations: Establishment of clear and simple rules and guidelines Establishment of a central help desk in Brussels Improve training in EC Delegations

13 Validity of references (1) Problem description: In most cases selection criteria specify that firms must have references in the last 3 years Consequently: Many SMEs are excluded from tendering Therefore, the potential of capable/qualified companies is limited

14 Validity of references (2) EFCA recommendation: Validity of references should be extended to 5 years for engineering consultancy firms

15 Definition of conflict of interest (1) Problem description: Firms excluded from subsequent project phases based on involvement in earlier stages (except for ToR) Consequently: Disruptive for project itself Multiple selection procedures are expensive and time-consuming for both contracting authority and consultants

16 Definition of conflict of interest (2) EFCA recommendation: Make all preliminary investigation documents available to all participants Restrict that “conflict of interest” to a restricted and well defined list