How can Early Contractor Involvement (ECI) benefit my project?

As all of our frameworks are Gold Standard verified we are able to demonstrate our commitment to maintaining the highest standards for compliant, collaborative and responsible procurement. We commit to sharing procurement best practice and below, we explore what early contractor involvement (ECI) is and how, through our civil engineering, construction, consultancy and utilities frameworks, it can support the public sector to improve project delivery and achieve real and tangible outcomes for our local communities.

Early contractor involvement (ECI) is the process of engaging with your chosen delivery partner contractor at the earliest opportunity, for example during the pre-construction and feasibility stage of your project.

The earlier you engage with a delivery partner contractor, the sooner you can start to leverage their expert knowledge of cost, programme and buildability. This is fundamental to ensuring that the budget you have secured is realistic, and that you can achieve maximum value from it.

ECI can also help develop your project brief: a clearly defined brief from the outset will pay dividends throughout, increasing project and programme efficiency, and optimising the construction process. This also includes your social value targets: the ECI process provides valuable time and insight for delivery teams to understand and plan the desired local economic, social and environmental goals for the programme.

Overall, ECI allows more time to establish a strong relationship, encouraging open dialogue, transparency and collaboration from the start.

The public sector must adopt efficient procurement routes if they are to achieve best value. As Gold Standard verified, SCAPE's frameworks are one of the few that allow the public sector to engage with contractors early.

By contrast, other procurement processes only involve the contractor after the design team has mapped out the concept, or even after they have taken it through the planning process. In these cases, by the time a contractor is engaged, clients may be locked into a design that is not working as effectively as it could.

With clients maintaining cost and design advice from their consultants, through ECI each expert – architectural, technical, sustainability, and supply chain partners – feeds into the process, helping to identify areas where combined experience and innovation can produce greater efficiencies.

To summarise, ECI improves buildability, mitigates risk and drives greater certainty of outcome across time, quality and value.