A state-owned railway engineering consultancy to bid for UK projects?

[D365]

From the latest "More Delay for HS2" thread:

I do wonder what would happen if you re-ran the design optimisation with more realistic costs.

It seems likely that the entire project plan is junk given the massive and continuous escalations in cost.

How do you propose that we avoid consultants taking the public sector for a ride in future?

Myself I would propose the creation of a UK equivalent of the civil engineering side of the US Army Corps of Engineers.

Maintaining a staff of the appropriate experts would be expensive, but affordable if we could line them up onto a constant pipeline of projects of various types.

And as they would always have more work in the future they would avoid the temptation of consultancies to drag things out to get more money since there is no guarantee there will be another contract.

From what I've understood, you're proposing a GB state-owned engineering consulting firm to undertake railway projects within the UK?

 

[pdeaves]

Like Network Rail Consulting? https://www.networkrailconsulting.com

 

[D365]

Like Network Rail Consulting? https://www.networkrailconsulting.com

Good point. Perhaps I should clarify the question...

 

[HSTEd]

In many ways the idea of having them "bid" would prevent it from solving anything.

The primary problem with consultancies are the peverse incentives caused by the bidding process.

There is no real driver to complete work in a timely fashion, because there is absolutely no guarantee that there will be any additional work after that. It also does not pay to offer permanent solutions to problems because it permanently reduces the amount of work to bid on.

We see these peverse incentives at work all the time in the nuclear industry.

The state should simply have an in house engineering group that has the capability to do various common or semi common projects and they should just do them.

 

[Roast Veg]

The state should simply have an in house engineering group that has the capability to do various common or semi common projects and they should just do them.

I'm sure such a company would become a training school for future consultants.

 

[HSTEd]

I'm sure such a company would become a training school for future consultants.

The market for consultants would shrink precipitously however, given that the government would not put anywhere near as much consultancy work into the private sector.

 

[Bald Rick]

The state should simply have an in house engineering group that has the capability to do various common or semi common projects and they should just do them.

We have one - it’s called Network Rail Works Delivery.