SCAPE appoints Kier to its £1.5 billion National Minor Works framework

The framework is managed by SCAPE, the public sector-owned built environment specialist, who offer a broad range of national frameworks. Kier’s appointment was made following an OJEU-compliant tender process, assessed against a rigorous set of social, economic and environmental sustainability criteria. Kier was first appointed to the Minor Works framework in 2011.

The Minor Works framework was developed to support a wide range of requirements and has to date delivered over 500 projects across the United Kingdom. These include the construction of new primary school classrooms, university campus refurbishments, a fire service training centre, a Mind (mental health) drop-in centre and a new food market which formed part of a city centre regeneration programme.

The first Minor Works framework was designed to deliver new build, maintenance or refurbishment programmes valued between £25,000 and £2 million. The new framework will however offer a substantially increased upper project value of £4 million.

The higher project value threshold means the Minor Works framework now has the potential to support a more diverse range of projects. This flexibility will allow SCAPE’s public sector clients to work with a greater level of efficiency, through the consolidation of new construction projects with programmes of work. The public sector will also be in a position to secure greater efficiencies through one key point of contact and one delivery team. Aligned with SCAPE’s community strategy, the framework will continue to drive significant levels of local labour and local spend, as well as facilitating training, skills and apprenticeship schemes.

Mark Robinson, SCAPE Chief Executive, comments: “Kier has successfully established the Minor Works framework as a highly valued service for the public sector. The team have executed over 500 projects with a quality approach, a steadfast focus on creating client value and a continued passion for stimulating local economic growth. We are therefore pleased to announce we will continue to work with the team to deliver an optimised Minor Works framework offering."

Haydn Mursell, Kier Group chief executive commented: “This agreement provides an ideal opportunity to build on the excellent relationship we have already developed with SCAPE, cementing our role as a leading provider of solutions to the public sector and underlining the strength of our national construction offering.

“Kier and SCAPE share a very similar ethos and we are both committed to using our extensive market experience to deliver exceptional projects, whilst creating opportunities for employment and training in the locations where we operate. We have already delivered a wide range of successful projects together, and we look forward to working on an even broader spectrum of schemes over the next four years.”

SCAPE’s framework partner Kier is a leading property, residential, construction and services group. Employing 22,000 people, with a network of 88 UK offices, a turnover of over £4bn and an order book of £9.5bn, Kier operates across a range of sectors including, education, health, housing, transport, industrials, power, defence and utilities.

As with all of SCAPE’s national frameworks, the Minor Works framework is OJEU (Official Journal of the European Union) compliant, which removes the need for long tender processes which previously applied to such work. This allows SCAPE’s clients to react quickly to the changing needs of local communities and deliver much-needed infrastructure in a limited timeframe.

The rigorous key performance indictors governing SCAPE’s frameworks equally apply to the Minor Works framework, which include factors such as local employment and local spend as well as traditional indictors like time and cost predictability.

The framework is anticipated to operate until September 2019.