The challenge to radically improve the delivery of the Queenstown Lakes District's works programme has been met through a new method of project contracting, announced today.

"On Friday the council gave its approval to establish a panel of physical works contractors to deliver the design work commenced last year under the Capital Works Procurement Strategy. The council is now in the position to dramatically improve on the delivery of infrastructure capital works," QLDC chief executive Duncan Field said.

In June last year the council identified it needed a boost in terms of the delivery of capital works.

"With the rate of growth, we discovered that in the last five years capital budgets had increased by 83 percent but delivered projects had increased by only 54 percent, when it needed to improve by 138 percent," Mr Field said.

Council needed to make significant changes.

"First we needed to ensure that the council had the front end design work for major capital works projects in hand and then we needed to make sure we had contractors that had the capability and the capacity to do the work," Mr Field said.

Consultation with the contracting industry disclosed its desire for a system that afforded more security in terms of the dedication of resource and investment.

"Over the past year we have been working towards the delivery of a method of selection for the physical works contractors that met the council?s delivery needs and the requirements of those contractors to commit to the delivery of those projects, all in a 'best practise' environment," Mr Field said.

Expressions of interest were called for and all contractors, who submitted were invited to submit additional non-price and price information. A total of 18 contractors submitted further information. An evaluation team of eight (including four independent consultants) then undertook an intensive seven stage process to form a contractor short list of nine.

"We then went through another process of evaluation to give weighting to 12 price and non price attributes, including track record, resources, investment plan and people. The selection process has been both fair and robust," Mr Field.

Contractors also had to submit pricing on six sample projects.

"The final part involved assessing the contractors for suitability for the various service streams from bridge constructions through to wastewater services," he said.

The result was that subject to final negotiations six contractors had been selected to enter into contracts with the council to carry out up to $125.5 million of capital works contracts over the next five years.

"That will still leave around 30 percent of capital works from a potential budget of $200 million of Council Community Plan approved projects that can be tendered on the open market," Mr Field said.

The selected contractors, which the council hoped to be in a position to announce at the end of August, would continue to be subject to scrutiny during the term of the contract.

"There will be a performance management regime, which will ensure the selected providers continue to deliver on time and on budget," Mr Field said.

A panel of the successful contractors would regularly assess and compare performance across the membership and deal in transparent margins.

"The panel will be important to assure the council it is continuing to get the best value for project delivery. The model has worked very successfully elsewhere," Mr Field said.

The council was now on track to make major inroads to its capital works programme.

"It?s been a lot of work but it's a great achievement for the council and all involved giving the council, the contractors and the community a much higher degree of surety around delivery of major capital projects," Mr Field said.

Mr Field expressed his thanks to councillors, staff, contractors and all those involved in the project.

ENDS

For further information please contact Duncan Field 03 441 0499.

By: Tamah