CCI Case Study No. 002 The Waterfront Barrow-in-: Leaving a Legacy Sustainable Development through Integrated Working and Cross-Authority Co-operation

The town of Barrow-in-Furness developed rapidly in the mid 19th Century around iron and steel and shipbuilding. Indeed the town still relies heavily on submarine building, together with other naval and Primary Demonstrations: commercial shipbuilding capability. Cross Authority Cooperation The closure of the steelworks in 1985 and substantial job losses in local shipbuilding in Sustainable the early 1990’s Development resulted in economic difficulties for the Secondary Demonstrations: Borough. Integrated Teams Through the ECI development of strong local partnerships and Clients: a determined willingness to County tackle these Council problems the West Lakes Borough is now Renaissance moving forward Barrow-in-Furness again. Borough Council Leading this Regeneration is the West Lakes Renaissance Urban NWDA Regeneration Company. ABP

“West Lakes Renaissance, the Urban Regeneration Company for Furness and West Cumbria, is attempting to turn around the economy of the sub Contractor: region which stretches from Bay to the Solway Firth. This has Alfred McAlpine and still is suffering from industrial decline, resulting in out-migration Project Services (particularly of our young people), unemployment and a worn out infrastructure. Yet we have many assets -a coastal environment second to The Waterfron Barrow-in-Furness: Leaving a Legacy

none, close proximity to the Lakes, Georgian gems The investment, which was channelled through West Lakes such as Whitehaven and Maryport, some of the Renaissance, enabled the acquisition of approximately 40 largest sites in the North West which are available hectares of land that had previously been held by Associated for development and high levels of talent, skills and British Ports, by Barrow Borough Council and Cumbria County expertise.” Council.

“The key will be to co-ordinate existing regeneration The acquisition paved the way for the redevelopment of the activity more effectively and to attract new entire Port area under “The Waterfront Barrow-in-Furness”, the investment on the scale that is needed. With others, £80 masterplan for the redevelopment of Barrow, which is we shall be creating a knowledge economy based expected to lever in an additional £100 million of private sector on new skills and business growth.” investment to the area.

Michael Baker from West Lakes Renaissance In the long-term, the project will create a major employment commented “We have an £80 million programme of park focused on technology-based business, a housing investment in Barrow in Furness and this is aimed development comprising 450 new homes, and new hotels and at broadening the local economic base and restaurants. Recreation facilities including a marina, water generating private sector confidence in an area sports complex and nature reserve also form part of the wider experiencing market failure.” plans for the site. Whilst the acquisition of the sites had been taking place, the Michael continued by saying “The programme is Strategic Management Group had been busy looking at the centred around the delivery of the Waterfront Barrow various stages of the development and how to ensure that in Furness and will provide new employment sites, constructor teams were procured to ensure the site was waterfront development, housing, tourism, and developed sustainably and with ‘best value’ high on the leisure opportunities. A key output will be agenda. the creation of 1,500 new jobs on the Waterfront Business Park.” During 1999 Cumbria County Council made the decision to outsource its ‘Design and Business Services Department’ and The vision for Barrow-in-Furness by West Lakes this lead to the ultimate selection of Capita Symonds as the Renaissance is matched by their partners, Cumbria Councils ‘Design and Services Partner’ – Capita Symonds County Council, Barrow-in-Furness Borough Council were to provide all services that the department undertook for and the North West Regional Development Agency the council. 2 who formed a “Strategic Management Group” to develop and manage the Barrow-in-Furness Procurement: Strategic Alliances waterfront along with the previous owners of the During 2004/2005 Capita Symonds and Cumbria County land, Associated British Ports. Council, had taken part in the NWDA’s “Constructing Excellence Training Programme” – a series of twelve training The Strategic Management Group modules, delivered by the Centre for Construction Innovation, The Strategic Management Group is an executive which focused on the Rethinking Construction agenda as set group of representatives from West Lakes out in the “Rethinking Construction” report and the subsequent Renaissance, Barrow Borough Council, Cumbria “Accelerating Change” report. County Council, Northwest Regional Development Agency and Associated British Ports which One of these modules was particularly of interest to both oversees the implementation of the masterplan. Capita Symonds and the County Council – “Procurement: Individual projects are developed and procured by Strategic Alliances” – the workshop looked at how the organisations represented on the group and Government has changed its policy, through the project governance is provided by the Boards or recommendations from the Audit Office, the Office of Councils governing the relevant organisation. This Government Commerce and Constructing Excellence, to move structure has avoided the need to create a new to more relational forms of procurement, such as partnering. delivery organisation and streamlines delivery, reporting and control. The module also gave support on how such procurement approaches could be applied in practice, with guidance on issues such as prequalification, short-listing, method The first step of the comprehensive masterplan to statements and quality evaluation and mechanisms to transform Barrow was given the green light in March manage project teams when selection has been made, such 2006, thanks to investment of over £5 million from as effective risk management, performance management and the NWDA. the pricing mechanism. CCI Case Study No. 002

Demonstration: Cross-Authority Co-Operation, Sustainable Development, Integrated Teams, Early Contractor Involvement and of partnering Having attended this module, Cumbria CC/Capita decided to • Company policies for local labour recruitment invite CCI to their offices to explain to a wider audience the and equal opportunities, selection of local concept of partnering and it was agreed to use this model of sub-contractors and suppliers, training and procurement for the first of the Barrow Waterfront contracts. health and safety • Respect for People The Procurement Group • Quality Management A ‘Procurement Group’ was initiated to set up the • Environmental Management procurement model to be used with Cumbria County Council and West Lakes Renaissance, as the main players, being the It was identified early in the process that the main decision makers in terms of the procurement process, the drivers, from both the Strategic Management Group drivers to be included in each stage of the selection process and the Procurement Group, for this project would and for the weighting applied to each driver. be to ensure that the local supply chain of contractors, sub-contractors and suppliers would be Capita prepared all the documents in accordance with these able to undertake some or all of the work and the drivers and current best practice and these were ultimately use of the local labour on the project, without this, it discussed with and approved by the Procurement Group. was agreed, the planned regeneration of Barrow-in- Furness could not be fulfilled. It was imperative that The Procurement Group set out the principles and the local companies and local workers took part and processes needed to ensure the goals and the drivers of the shared in the work that would be generated through team were fully met at all stages of the procurement process, the regeneration process to ensure both a these goals and drivers being set out at the initial procurement sustainable development and a sustainable workshop through deciding what the critical success factors of community who could benefit from the regeneration this project would be and what the critical failure factors would of the area. be. From this the project ‘hard gates’ were defined – what are the ‘must haves’ of the procurement process and of the From this, the drivers for procurement were refined eventual constructor team who are awarded the contract and for the second stage assessment and became: - what are the ‘soft gates’ – those factors that would be ‘nice’ to have in the project, but are more subjective. • Proposed local supply chain for the works • Proposals to benefit the local economy and From these workshops the procurement model for the project community benefit was decided upon, the assessors identified, the quality:cost 3 split agreed – it was decided to use a model that had a 70:30 • Health and Safety quality to cost ration for this project – and the OJEU process was then started – it was imperative that a contractor had to Michael Baker of West Lakes Renaissance be appointed as soon as possible. commented “The Waterfront Barrow in Furness features as a key transitional project within the Jim White of Cumbria County Council commented “The Regional Economic Strategy for the North West of County Council chose the method of procurement because we England (Action 49). Our aim in the delivery of the believed that it offered the best opportunity of meeting the masterplan is to seek a best practice approach at regeneration objectives of Barrow, by involving the local all times, whether this be community consultation community, suppliers and contractors in the design and and stakeholder management or capital delivery of this vital regeneration project.” construction procurement using the Rethinking Construction approach.” “We also understood that using this method offered not only an opportunity to achieve an economic and efficient project Procurement Process but would allow us to to draw upon the expertise and Capita and the Procurement Group then focused experience that a suitably qualified contractor could bring to their attention on the following processes: - the project.” • The key stakeholders were consulted by The Pre-Qualification Questionnaire Capita to ascertain the drivers for the works For the Pre-Qualification Questionnaire the main drivers for the and the necessary experience, culture, Procurement Group were: processes and other requirements of the selected constructor group • Experience of undertaking works of a similar nature • The approval, by the Procurement Group, of • Experience of working as part of an integrated team the documents prepared by Capita as a result

CCI Case Study No. 002 - The Waterfront Barrow-in-Furness: Leaving a Legacy The Waterfron Barrow-in-Furness: Leaving a Legacy

of the consultations for each question. Agreed scores were recorded in the • The selection of a quality/price ratio model assessment model which then applied the appropriate following guidance from Capita weighting for each question to give a preliminary quality score. • The approval of the shortlist of constructor groups recommended by Capita at the end of The next stage of the procurement process was to undertake the first stage of the selection process and a reality check at the offices of each of the tenderer’s who had the undertaking of the financial checks for the been identified as being capable of managing the works. The selected shortlist reality check team consisted of two Capita staff and a member of the Procurement Group. • The explanation of the aspirations for the project and the processes necessary in the The purpose of the reality checks was to validate each implementation of the project to the selected tenderer’s quality statement and to determine whether each shortlist at the outset of the second stage of tenderer could substantiate the contents of their quality the procurement process statement. It was found that the reality checks were • The attendance during tender clinics to extremely useful for gaining a better understanding of the answer specific question concerning client processes and systems employed by each of the tenderers to issues or processes that constructor groups manage projects of this size and nature. On completion of may have. the reality checks the quality scores were revisited and • The attendance at reality checks that formed adjusted to reflect the findings from these checks and to give part of the assessment of the quality of the a final quality score for each of the tenderers. constructor groups • To receive the recommendations for a The financial envelope was then opened and the tendered preferred constructor group from Capita on hourly rates and fee percentages were entered into the completion of the procurement process assessment model. The tenderer with the highest score was accepted as offering best value to the project in terms of the In response to the OJEU Contract Notice Capita criteria agreed and set by the Procurement Group. received approximately 60 requests from constructor groups for the pre-qualification questionnaire which The Procurement Group were kept informed of the progress of was e-mailed by return to each group. By the the assessment of the pre-qualification questionnaires and the closing date for submission of responses to the pre- tender process at all relevant stages to ensure that the initial qualification questionnaire Capita had received 36 objectives of the project were kept constant and that the goals submissions from constructor groups. and drivers were maintained throughout each of the processes 4 of the procurement model. This ensured a high level of Capita assessed each submission against the transparency throughout the process that meant that all previously prepared assessment criteria and decisions were made consistently and for the good of the awarded marks for the response to each section of project, ensuring that ‘best value’ would be achieved on the the pre-qualification questionnaire. The assessment award of the final tender and the consequential construction and scoring process resulted in five constructor and completion of the project. groups achieving significant total scores and these five were recommended for progress to the second On completion of the evaluation process for the award of the selection stage. contract it became apparent that, whilst there were several good responses, there was one exceptional response that The second stage of the selection process was met with all of the issues set out in the tender documents and initiated at the Project Presentation where the Key matched the drivers set out in the initial procurement Project Partners gave a short presentation to all the workshop. tenderers. The purpose of the presentation was to convey to the selected tenderers the project Jim White from Cumbria County Council observed “As the objectives, the key aspects of the Tender process client we found the tender process to be no more onerous and to outline the aspirations and involvement of the than any other tender process. It allowed us to get closely various interested parties. At the completion of the involved with potential contractors and review in detail their presentation the tender documents were distributed approach to partnering and ECI and enable us to fully to the tenderers for subsequent completion. explore any potential benefits.”

Once all of the tenders were returned the quality “We were very surprised and reassured with the level of statement envelope was opened and Capita knowledge, understanding and experience that all of the short assessed the submissions against previously listed contractors were able to show us both on ECI and prepared assessment criteria and awarded marks partnering.” CCI Case Study No. 002

Demonstration: Cross-Authority Co-Operation, Sustainable Development, Integrated Teams, Early Contractor Involvement Of all the tenders submitted the one by Alfred McAlpine The form of contract used for the construction works Project Services scored/ranked the best and covered is NEC 3, Engineering and Construction Contract innovative ways by which they would use the local supply Option C: Target Contract with Activity Schedule and chain and local labour to undertake the project and put in the contract involves for a profit share. Alfred place measures that would ensure the community of Barrow- McAlpine proposed an alternative share in-Furness benefited not just from the project, but from the arrangement in their tender which, they believed, whole construction and procurement process – indeed, their provided the Client with better value. This alternative proposal suggested that they could and would leave behind a has subsequently been accepted. legacy of a trained local workforce and competent construction companies and suppliers that would be self- Sustainable Communities – Working with sustaining after the completion of the contract and beyond, the Local Supply Chain ensuring the full regeneration of Barrow-in-Furness and the surrounding areas. On being awarded ECI status, McAlpine started Jim White on the winning tender – “Alfred McAlpine provided putting their ideas in to practice with regards to their clear, well thought out proposals for the various aspects of the claims of ensuring a sustainable community would works and included innovative solutions to some of the be built in Barrow-in-Furness. This did not daunt problems posed. They also demonstrated an understanding of McAlpine as they believed that they could work with the proposed contract processes and procedures through the local supply chain and help to up-skill such previous contracts they had undertaken.” organisations to become the type of organisation “It was demonstrated in the submission that considerable time that they would be happy to work with as part of the had been spent within Barrow talking with stakeholders, local supply chain that would undertake the Barrow businesses and residents about the project, their aspirations Waterfront project. and how they could assist McAlpines if they were successful. The quality statement was well presented and demonstrated During the tender period McAlpine went to that considerable time and effort had been taken to ensure considerable efforts to meet local businesses and that the document was easy to follow.” suppliers to engage them early on in the process. The works for the whole of the land based projects forming the Letters were sent to introduce the project and the Waterfront Masterplan that are to be procured through this company and to offer opportunities to local contract will form individual work packages. The first work companies. package is for the Waterfront Business Park and will consist of two phases within the contract. McAlpine’s work with the local supply chain of Barrow-in-Furness and the West Lake’s area begin Early Contractor Involvement in earnest in September 2006 when they organised 5 a ‘Construction Forum’ in Barrow-in-Furness. With After discussions between the Strategic Management Group the help of Furness Enterprise, South West and the Procurement Group it was decided, in June 2006, to Cumbria’s main business support agency, a award Early Contractor Involvement status to McAlpine so that ‘Business Briefing’ was held to outline the they could work with the designers on the first phase of the opportunities available to the local supply chain from contract to ensure ‘buildability’, work out a ‘Target Cost’ for McAlpines’ potential £25 million worth of contracts the project to help the Strategic Management Group with their from the new development of the Waterfront Barrow- funding issues and to set out a ‘Key Performance Indicator’ in-Furness. regime that would ensure best value in the contract and reward continuous improvement by the main contractor and its At the ‘Business Briefing’ McAlpine were available supply chain. to explain what they required of potential supply chain partners and how the local supply chain could The ECI KPI’s included Predictability of Cost and Time, begin to pre-qualify for their tendering/supply chain Quality and Overall Team Performance. Phase 2 of the works lists. Approximately 250 representatives from local package will be awarded on the proviso of continuous companies attended the event and McAlpine had improvement by McAlpine against the ECI KPI’s. Approval of begun the process of working with the local supply funding for the works and the granting of planning consent for chain – their Quality Manager, Health and Safety the works will also be required and Alfred McAlpine have Manager and Environmental Manager, amongst provided assistance in these issues throughout. In the first others, were able to detail what would be expected instance the works will involve the construction of the of their partners if they became part of their supply Ramsden Business Park section of the Waterfront Business chain. Park and is approximately a third of the works involved in the Waterfront Business Park. All interested companies were asked to complete a ‘Vendor Questionnaire’ which requested details of all

CCI Case Study No. 002 - The Waterfront Barrow-in-Furness: Leaving a Legacy The Waterfron Barrow-in-Furness: Leaving a Legacy

the companies Quality, Health, Safety and Environmental procedures. All of the companies who completed these questionnaires would be considered when enquiries for the works were sent out during the compilation of the Target Cost.

Audits will be carried out on some of the supply chain to ensure that they have the capability to deliver the project for the Client. McAlpine have plans to work with local companies and potential supply chain partners and, where such organisations need assistance, they plan to help them gain accreditation to such things as ISO 9001 – Quality Management, ISO 14001 – Environmental Management Systems, CHAS (Construction Health & Safety Assessment Scheme). The Waterfron Barrow-in-Furness Team To facilitate this McAlpine will work with organisations such as Furness Enterprise, CITB- Dave Hill, Project Director for McAlpine commented “The Construction Skills, Business Link for Cumbria, CCI procurement and ECI process has had its struggles, but we and the Cumbria Constructing Excellence Best have formed a fantastic relationship with our Clients.” Practice Club to further help the capacity building of local SME enterprises. This is not a new initiative for “Construction is about people and by having such an McAlpine, other such initiatives have been interactive team we have ensured that we find solutions to undertaken in the past on other Projects. problems at the earliest possible moment and this has led to savings for the Client and the reduction in time to complete McAlpine are also committed to carrying on the certain parts of the works.” Clients ethos of ‘working together’ as they intend to procure their supply chain using quality as well as Dave continued, commenting that “at first we were a bit price so as to ensure that all risk is averted concerned about working with a multi-client organisation, but wherever possible. the different organisations have come together as one and there has been a clear line of communication right from the 6 Leaving a Legacy start. This development has shown that cross-authority co- operation can work and work well when the right team is put During the ECI phase some minor site works have together.” been undertaken and Alfred McAlpine have already utilised local labour and suppliers to deliver such Learning Outcomes works. This has already demonstrated their commitment to a sustainable community, even at • Cross-Authority Cooperation is essential to ensure the this very early stage in the project. delivery of key projects • Sustainable Development through the use of a McAlpine are intent, too, to encourage local people procurement route to ensure community benefit to become part of the regeneration of Barrow-in- Furness and are looking at what the can do to • The role of the Client and Contractor to ensure the use encourage local people to take up employment and of local labour/supply chain. training opportunities with them and their supply • The benefits, both financial and in team building, of chain. Early Contractor Involvement • The importance of integrated teams – it is about people McAlpine have always encouraged workplace and good relationships training and are currently looking at how they can employ local trainees once construction work begins on the Barrow Waterfront project. They have entered discussions with the Barrow Job Centre, local labour agencies and training organisations with a view to using the Project as a training ground to develop local labour. CCI Case Study No. 002

Demonstration: Cross-Authority Co-Operation, Sustainable Development, Integrated Teams, Early Contractor Involvement The Waterfront Barrow-in- Furness project won the Cumbria Best Practice Award at the North West Regional Construction Awards 2007.

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CCI Case Study No. 002 - The Waterfront Barrow-in-Furness: Leaving a Legacy The Waterfron Barrow-in-Furness: Leaving a Legacy

8 CCI Case Study No. 002

Demonstration: Cross-Authority Co-Operation, Sustainable Development, Integrated Teams, Early Contractor Involvement