By Bill De Angelis, City of Toronto
As a consultant, I sometimes wondered what owners thought of the performance of consulting engineers in the delivery of capital works projects. After a year in public service, following nearly two decades in the consulting sector, I am now able to observe the various elements of project delivery from the viewpoint of an owner.
Use of consultants
Public sector clients hire consulting engineers to deliver projects because they lack the specialized expertise and/or staff resources to effectively deliver them internally. This wasn’t always the case, and even now some municipal design, survey and inspection work is conducted using professional engineers and technicians in the owner’s employ. For the most part, however, the level of complexity of large projects has required the retention of specialist firms, working in concert with municipal staff.
Internal staff acts mainly in project management capacities, ensuring that those firms retained to conduct analysis, design and delivery assignments do so according to owner-dictated specifications, regulations and timelines. We coordinate the efforts of numerous consultants delivering multiple projects at various locations, in order to minimize overlap and public disruption. We also meet the owner’s strategic objectives of timely delivery of state-of-good-repair and growth-related infrastructure programs within available funding envelopes.
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Consultant selection
We have seen an evolution in the procurement of consultant services over the years. Some time ago, the City of Toronto employed firms as consultants of record, retained to carry out all works at particular locations in the City. Around 1992, this practice was discontinued, and in the intervening years the selection process evolved into one of intense competition for work, coupled with low bid selection. This resulted in a steady decrease in fees as a percentage of project capital cost, a reduction in product quality, budget and cost overruns, and scheduling problems that delayed project completion.
The current approach to consultant selection is seeing the City placing a greater emphasis on technical detail and project team selection, and on the allocation of staff resources, commensurate with project/task needs. The goal is to ensure we receive the appropriate level of expertise and experience for each project. While there is a greater emphasis on technical merit, cost is considered in proposal reviews. As guardians of the public purse, there is an obligation upon staff to ensure the City receives value for money on each project.
A variety of instruments are employed to secure consultants for assignments, including sole source, roster, expression of interest (EOI) and requests for proposal (RFP). The procurement method selected is dependent on a number of factors that can include complexity, urgency, time constraints and consultant availability.
The City employs alternative approaches to deliver consulting assignments today, including design bid build, design build and in some cases a program management model. Many municipalities are facing financial pressures now and will in the future. So, one can expect to see more public sector clients investigating alternative financing and procurement (AFP) models, including design-build-operate (DBO) and design-build-finance-operate-maintain (DBOFM). Consultant expertise in the delivery of AFP models will become a necessity in future as these approaches begin to be applied.
Expectations
We expect quality service and products from our consultants, guaranteed assignment of key individuals per time-task breakdowns on proposals, and project delivery to meet committed timelines.
