Briefing: The Institution of Civil Engineers' intelligent client capability framework

Abstract

Recent aspirations to transform the delivery of major capital programmes and projects in the public sector are focusing on the achievement of value for money, whole life asset management and sustainable procurement, embodied in the principles of the Intelligent Client. However, there is little support offered to those working in client functions to promote the development of the skills and behaviours that underpin effective client decision-making. In line with the relaunch Infrastructure UK's Project Initiation Routemap, the Capacity Building Panel at the Institution for Civil Engineers has taken the first step in providing individuals with client capability development guidance. The Intelligent Client Capability Framework translates the principles of the Intelligent Client into a self-assessment with big potential, not just for building the capacity of Civil Engineers as Intelligent Clients, but for UK clients in general.

The organisational architecture of megaprojects

“…This concept can be expanded to some major public owners, like the National Health Service (NHS) and even the government for strategic projects, which should become strong owners and participate actively throughout the delivery process to guarantee its own interest and decrease the number of unsuccessful projects. The literature presents several names to classify this type of owner, which is often still called by the term 'client': strong owner (Morris and Hough, 1987;Porter, 1998;Swarup, Korkmaz, and Riley, 2012;Winch and Leiringer, 2016), sophisticated owner (Lovejoy and Mortensen, 1989), influential owner (Cox and Ireland, 2006), capable owner (Long, Ogunlana, Quang, and Lam, 2004;Merrow, 2011) , intelligent client (Airtua, Male, andBower, 2009;Airtua, Male, Bower, and Madter, 2011;Emuze and Smallwood, 2011;Madter and Bower, 2015;Laryea and Watermeyer, 2016), sophisticated client (Higgin and Jessop, 1965;Loosemore and Richard, 2015), pluralistic client (Cherns and Bryant, 1984;Green, 1996;Thompson, 2011), continuing client (Hillebarndt, 1984Wu, Kumaraswamy, and Soo, 2011), informed client (Elston, 1992;Smith, 1994), experienced client (Masterman and Gameson, 1994), large ongoing portfolio client (Blismas, Sher, Thorpe, and Baldwin, 2004), progressive client (Tah, 2005), active client (Sturdy and Wright, 2011), and capable client (Denicol, 2020a).…”

A systems approach to strategic infrastructure delivery

“…Authors such as Martin et al (2006), EC Harris and TRL (2009), Flyvbjerg et al (2008), HS2 (2009, NAO (2012), Cantarelli et al (2010Cantarelli et al ( , 2012, Helm (2013) Madter and Bower (2015) and HM Treasury (2010 point toward increasing client and management costs, as well as a lack of skills and ability within ICOs. Indeed, the Infrastructure Cost Review (ICR) (HM Treasury, 2010) identified client leadership, overly complicated procurement practices and poor design specification as the top three areas for reducing costs.…”