Scape Group Celebrates Its First 10 Years In Public Sector Construction

Firm saves public sector more than 100 years of procurement time and over £390 million in last decade.

Scape Group, the procurement specialist, has been helping the public sector create maximum economic and social value for local communities through its national and regional frameworks since April 2006.

The public sector owned organisation, which now operates six national frameworks with two under live procurement, has more than 500 clients in the public sector, which have used its expertise and partnerships with leading contractors and consultants for 2,100 completed projects to date.

Scape is currently working with the public sector on 1,400 live commissions which range from construction projects, infrastructure, facilities management, asset management surveying and design and project management and quantity surveying.

Mark Robinson, Scape Group Chief Executive, comments: ‘The public sector is under pressure to deliver facilities, infrastructure and services to cater for a rapidly growing population in a time of continued austerity, uncertainty and with diminishing resources. By facilitating ongoing collaboration between the public sector and our rigorously selected framework partners, we are proud to help public sector bodies achieve savings, meet efficiency targets and add socio-economic value to local communities through their assets, estate and infrastructure. Over the last decade we have focused our efforts on creating an environment of enhanced collaboration between our public sector partners and our delivery teams and we are thrilled to have saved the public sector over 5,500 weeks of procurement time, which equates to more than 100 years and over £390 million.

‘Using the Scape suite of frameworks and our design services offers advantages beyond time and money savings. Through our local supply chain strategy, we have engaged 36,900 small and medium-sized enterprises, which has facilitated over £1.3 billion of spend within 20 miles of each project and over £2 billion within 40 miles.

‘We are also passionate about playing our part in addressing the skills shortage. In partnership with our framework partners, we have helped inspire a new generation of skilled individuals by facilitating over 41,000 hours engaging with students on a one-to-one level, over 6,800 work experience placements and over 27,000 hours apprenticeship hours – that’s equivalent to 563 years!

‘Our entire team are hugely proud of the fact that our projects surpass client expectations. We have an average customer satisfaction score of 9/10, which exceeds all national customer satisfaction benchmarks, and we are proud to have delivered 95% of projects on time and 99% to budget. Over the next 10 years our strategy will continue along the same lines. We aim to continue our support for the public sector, listening to their needs, and we will respond by developing our value proposition to meet the UK built environment challenge head on’

Scape has also identified a list of ‘top 10’ goals over the next 10 years:

1. Become a partner of choice for local government, developing more collaborations like the Arc Partnership, to help local authorities drive efficiency and effectiveness

2. Be a significant facilitator in the creation of a fully-fledged Northern Powerhouse by working with leading framework partners to deliver built environment projects and connectivity through infrastructure, to support the economic development of communities

3. To work with the public sector to help it meet the demands of the UK population, which is set to increase by 4.4 million in the next decade, before reaching 70 million in 2027

4. Provide its capabilities in addressing the school place and housing shortage

5. Continue to develop relationships with central government departments, the EFA, Crown Commercial Services, Highways England and the LEP Network

6. Extend its procurement best practice from the public sector to public private partnerships

7. Continue to innovate in and shift perceptions of the standardised design

8. Offer its support elected regional mayors following the reorganisation of local government

9. Provide support to Government in delivering its investment commitment of over £100 billion in infrastructure by 2020-21

10. Continue to evolve its service offering frameworks in line with client need and ensuring that best value, through local social and economic outcomes are achieved

Mark Robinson continued: ‘The public sector space in which we operate is in constant flux. This year we have already seen important changes in education which will impact the way many schools are run, the restructuring of local government and the creation of regional mayors. There will no doubt be more change to come. The EU referendum is a major point of uncertainty in the coming weeks. The public sector must be nimble and we must be reactive to deliver success in these uncertain times. There are a range of visible opportunities and challenges for us to engage with over the next decade and we are excited as a team to help the public sector to succeed. Already this year we have launched our stand-alone architectural practice, Lungfish, our joint venture with Nottinghamshire County Council, Arc Partnership, and announced the procurement of the new National Construction framework which is anticipated to have an upper value of £5.5 billion. With new partnerships on the horizon, we are confident the next 10 years will be as focused on innovating to support the public sector as the last.’