Meeting of the Parliament 08 February 2023
I recognise the challenge that John Mason has outlined. As I think I mentioned in response to another member, we originally had three bidders that pre-qualified for the bid, which is important to observe. One of those bidders withdrew early in the process and another contractor withdrew on the day before tenders were due for submission. That resulted in only one tender being submitted. The outcome of that procurement competition was fairly unexpected and quite unusual. We have looked at some of the external factors that contributed to that.
Brexit and the situation in Ukraine—which John Mason mentioned—Covid-19 and, of course, the inflation that has been caused by the UK Government’s mini budget have all had broader impacts on the construction industry. The end of 2022 was an extremely challenging time for the construction sector more generally because, of course, we had peak inflation and additional market volatility.
Forecasts from the Building Cost Information Service show that the market is likely to settle in the coming months and years, and we anticipate that that will help us to get best value in the reprocurement exercise. Transport Scotland will, of course, engage with industry partners, including the Civil Engineering Contractors Association, to consider improvements that can be made to our design and build contracts—which have been the theme of some members’ questions today—to our contract delivery strategy and to the procurement mechanisms that we use.