Don't give us new initiatives, implement procurement best practice - that's the message sent to Gordon Brown, David Cameron and Nick Clegg in a letter from the chairman of the Specialist Engineering Contractors' (SEC) group.
SEC chairman Trevor Hursthouse has written to all three major political party leaders and is keen to meet with the winning candidate after the May 6 general election.

'Major new initiatives are not needed. The solution is for the public sector to implement best practice procurement,' said Hursthouse in his letter to the party leaders.

He added: 'Outdated procurement practices are a recipe for decline. Modern procurement delivering cost-efficient outcomes will promote economic recovery. You might think this is already happening - sadly it is not. Therefore, we should now make funding of public sector projects conditional on a demonstration of best practice procurement that includes identifying specific and measurable savings to be achieved'.

The SEC Group chairman recommends that to achieve best practice in procurement strategies, procurers must appoint project teams of architects, engineers, project managers and suppliers, working together at the planning and design stage of projects.

SEC represents a sector of 60,000 firms (mainly SMEs)employing more than 300,000 staff, which in construction output terms, contributes to almost 10% of GDP.