INTELLIGENCE
FEBRUARY 2021
Building back better Tim Oakley, Head Consultant at the London Housing Consortium, paints a post-Covid picture of public sector procurement
T
he first Covid-19 lockdown marked a sudden and radical change for public sector housing and construction procurement. The closure of offices and sites initially left local authority and housing association schedules in tatters, with public bodies unable to plan the completion of existing projects or to launch new projects. The preparedness of procurement staff, both on the supplier and buyer side, to carry out their respective duties was placed under significant stress.
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As the crisis continued throughout the year, it became obvious that contracting authorities and their suppliers would need to work in partnership to plan an eventual exit from relief and transition to new, sustainable operating models. This is what has been happening over the past ten months. Indeed, the London Housing Consortium (LHC) is taking a very positive view, as so much of the disruption of 2020 has accelerated a process of change that will bring many benefits for the years ahead. LHC has certainly used this pause-
button period to re-evaluate its own processes and to develop more effective procurement practices. What it has learned through lockdowns is that construction, specifically construction procurement, has been able to innovate to cope with the crisis. LHC has also discovered that, on the whole, the industry can act responsibly and fairly to support the response to Covid-19 and to protect jobs and the economy. Flexible working patterns have been successfully adopted, and programmes of work have been extended wherever necessary
IMAGE: SHUTTERSTOCK
BUILDING ENGINEER
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18/01/2021 14:06
