Organising Public Procurements for Design Works and Construction Works - Part 1: Organising Public Procurements for Design Works

2Scope / Description

Selle Estonia standard provides guidelines and recommendations for procuring building design services and other construction consultation services functionally related to design, in compliance with and derived from the Public Procurement Act. The standard’s guidelines and recommendations reflect the operational principles and good practices of the building design sector. Excluding requirements and constraints arising from the Public Procurement Act, the principles and practices of the design sector can be effectively applied in the private sector, as the core essence of design, construction works, and buildings does not depend on whether the client is legally obliged to follow the Public Procurement Act. Fundamentally, this is a general guide on how to procure building design services, with a focus on requirements and constraints that apply when the client must comply with the Public Procurement Act. The core of the standard consists of explanations and recommendations for understanding the nature and operational principles of this sector, thereby enabling professional organization of procurement.
The standard addresses the preparation and organization of public procurement for building design, the requirements applicable to businesses operating in the design field, and the requirements, recommendations, and guidance for foundational documents of design-related public procurement. It also covers procurement procedures suitable for organizing design public procurement, evaluation criteria, and the terms of design service procurement contracts.
Requirements for organizing public procurement stem from national legislation and European Union legal acts, and must be strictly observed in accordance with the law. However, it is not the purpose of this standard to provide detailed explanations of the general principles or formal requirements applicable to public procurement organization across all cases, irrespective of the subject matter of the procurement contract. Instead, the standard focuses on issues of central importance in the ordering of design and other construction consultation services, emphasizing the substantive priorities of this field over formal and procedural matters already regulated by the Public Procurement Act.
The scope of this standard covers public procurement for building design that simultaneously meets all of the following conditions:
— The subject of the public procurement is the design of buildings, utility networks, roads, road works, landscaping, and external space facilities. Due to the highly diverse specific requirements and possible public-law restrictions that must be considered in building design, the design of special buildings is excluded from the scope of this standard. Nevertheless, the principles and recommendations of this standard may also be applied to the design of special buildings; however, additional specific requirements stipulated in the Construction Code and other relevant legislation for that building type must also be observed.
— The estimated value of the public procurement is equal to or exceeds the national threshold. Simple procurements and public procurements below the threshold for simple procurement are not covered by this standard. This is because, for public procurements with a lower estimated value, the law grants procurers greater decision-making authority, procedural simplicity and flexibility, and broad discretion in selecting procedural rules. Nevertheless, the recommendations and guidance of this standard may also be applied to simple procurements and procurements with a lower estimated value, as the substantive principles of managing design and developing construction designs do not depend on the formal procedural rules of public procurement or the estimated value of the procurement.
— The public procurement for building design is conducted as an open procedure, a restricted procedure, competitive dialogue, competitive procedure with negotiation, or negotiated procedure without prior publication, or as a design competition for the acquisition of an architect’s concept. The scope of this standard does not include innovation partnerships or service concessions.
— The public procurement is organized by a contracting authority from the public sector, except where such a contracting authority concludes a contract in the field of defense and security or a contract related to its activities in the network sectors, applying the corresponding procedural rules. The standard does not cover procurements by contracting authorities in the network sectors related to their activities in those sectors.
This standard does not cover the organization of procurement for consulting services related to the preparation of general plans or detailed plans, nor the preparation of such plans. In this respect, guidance should be drawn from the guide “Recommendations for Conducting Procurement for Spatial Planning Consulting Services,” jointly produced by the Estonian Association of Planners and the Ministry of Finance. This guide was also used as source material in the development of this standard.
Given the dynamic nature of legislation, it is recommended to verify the references to legal acts contained in this text and to ascertain whether the wording of those acts has been amended after the entry into force of this standard. References to legal acts are current as of 08 June 2020.