The civil engineering contractors’ representative in Wales has welcomed progress towards reforming procurement processes for public sector work in Wales.

Huw Jones, managing director of Jones Bros, Ruthin, and chairman of the Welsh arm of the Civil Engineering Contractors’ Association, said that good progress was being made by the public sector procurement departments in Wales to simplify the tendering process and to ensure current financial information about companies is used.

“It is time-consuming and costly for firms to provide the same information but in slightly different format each time they tender to a different public sector body in Wales, whether it be a local authority or an Assembly department.

“It would also save a lot of public money if the assessment of financial risk was undertaken by a central unit. Such a unit would focus on ensuring that it had the latest picture as far as contractors’ strength and control is concerned.

“This would help to ensure that Welsh-based contractors would not be disadvantaged compared to big-name UK contractors. Whilst such firms may be better known, they are not necessarily economically more stable or better firms, just because they are bigger.

“Forming a central unit and gathering latest financial data would help the Welsh economy much more than leaving such assessments to an over-cautious local authority auditor using out-of-date financial information.”

Mr Jones went on to welcome comments by Martin Sykes, the chief executive of Value Wales, the Assembly body set up to deliver better value for money in public services.

“Mr Sykes said recently that he hopes reforms will be rolled out before the end of the parliamentary year.

“This is very good news for contractors across Wales.”

Mr Jones was speaking following the resolution of an issue that had initially prevented Jones Bros from being eligible to tender for the £20m Wrexham Industrial Estate link road.

Originally, using traditional financial assessment criteria, Wrexham County Council had told the firm it could only apply for contracts worth up to £9m.

Jones Bros asked the authority to reconsider its financial assessment procedures and bring them into line with best practice elsewhere. As a result of the change, the firm is now eligible to tender for the work.