NEWS

The Need for Action on Education Estates
The Department for Education published its Sustainability and Climate Change Strategy on the 21st of April 2022. The strategy aims to help educational organisations reduce their environmental footprint, with the objective of achieving net-zero. It identified 5 key elements in what is known as Action Area 3 – Education Estate and Digital Infrastructure, which we set…

Covid-19 Vaccination Programmes Estates Management Support
Bristol, North Somerset & South Gloucestershire NHS Trust have just released their latest vaccination programme results, with the Trust providing over 2 million vaccines to their communities. These results demonstrate the positive benefits of strong collaboration between the Trust and its supply chain, enabling them to provide local people with easy access to vaccinations during…

Why Investing in Employees is Crucial to Business Success
With this week marking National Careers Week 2022 Provelio caught up with Operations Director, Jeremy Sneddon, to better understand the importance of investing in employees and in the next working generation. If someone leaving school, college or university were looking to work at Provelio what type of roles and experience do you offer? We provide…

Competition and markets authority gets tough on unrealistic “green” claims
Introduction The Competition and Markets Authority has addressed the finding that “40% of green claims made by companies are misleading”. It has issued the “green claims code”, which states the 6 principles which must be upheld: Claims must be truthful and accurate Claims must be clear and unambiguous Claims must not omit or conceal important…

Is it time to properly reform the NHS?
Background At a time when the NHS has done so much during the Covid 19 crisis, it might seem unfair to point out the flaws in the system, but we think this is essential if we are to get improvements. The NHS must resolve to re-organise to deal with the pandemic and treat the backlog…

Exciting Developments in Climate Control
Cop 26 included almost all the countries in the world gathered in November 2021, for a conference in Glasgow, which focussed on climate change. In particular, it centred around measures that must be taken to prevent temperatures rising by 1.5oC by 2030, which scientists had produced a plethora of reports explaining why this was happening. …

How procurement must change to meet future challenges
Background Historically, the construction industry has suffered enormously during turbulent economic conditions. But from the outset of the pandemic the Government made it very clear that construction was one of the key industries to keep the economy moving. The current economic climate The industry is now flat out trying to meet demand, with consultants, contractors, trades…

The Five Key Objectives of a Project Sponsor
Projects do not always go according to plan. Sometimes they are delayed. Sometimes they go well over budget. On other occasions they simply do not achieve their objectives. Any one of these things can be a disaster for a project, but these things rarely happen overnight, so there is no excuse for “letting a project…

Re-thinking Estates Strategies for Universities – Covid-19 – The Facts
Covid-19 has already exposed many of the things we do (mostly subconsciously) which we will not be able to do in the future. We need to re-train ourselves, because the majority of Covid-19 is spread via the hands. This means that we need to: Be conscious of where our hands are – at all times.…

The Importance of SDI Profiles
Technical knowledge is no the only requirement of a Project Manager. Their most important role is to motivate everybody on the project to get the job done on time. After all, you cannot just set up a plan for a project and expect it all to happen without any intervention. The German military strategist Helmuth…
OUR MISSION
Our MISSION is to help you reach peak performance by providing management services that lead to lasting beneficial changes to:
GOT A QUESTION? WE HAVE THE ANSWERS
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
Time is the one resource on a project that, once lost, you can never get back. Here are the 5 actions which we take to ensure that your project finishes on time:
- We make sure that everybody on the project is made conscious of the importance of doing things on time - so that they can provide the right resources for timely completion.
- We start with the programmme; initially with little detail and a lot of assumptions about what may go wrong! We allow time for the things which we cannot foresee now. As we learn more about the project, we put the new detail in the project and replace our assumptions with accurate forecasts of the time required for each activity.
- We consult widely so that every party gets to see what they need to provide to others - and crucially what information they will need (and from whom) so that they can do their job on time.
- We produce very clear information on the programme - which is computer aided - and we encourage people to “shout” if they do not understand it.
- We resist change to scope of the works strongly (particularly during construction), so that delays are avoided.
If we stick to these 5 actions, in our experience, the project can be completed on time.
It is vital that a project is completed within the budget. Here are the 7 actions which take to make sure that this happens:
- In the first few days of a project we establish what we the Client wants and the programme within which it is required - these are the two main drivers of cost.
- As the design develops, we discuss the content of the project with the designers and test their confidence in the adequacy of their design.
- We also discuss the state of the design with the Quantity Surveyor and ascertain their confidence in the adequacy of their costs.
- Before it goes to tender, we take the designers and quantity surveyors through a lengthy checklist designed to establish whether there are any gaps or exclusions - these are usually items on which there are options about who does the design.
- Assuming that we find gaps or exclusions, we ask the team to establish a cost for each of them.
- Having completed this exercise, the only thing that remains to be done is to add a contingency sum for things that are “unforeseen and unforeseeable”.
- As the project progresses, we maintain strong discipline on cost control.
If we stick to these 7 actions, in our experience, the project can be completed within budget.
We like to prepare a project brief in conjunction with our Clients.
This means that you have the benefit of expressing what you want, while bringing our experience of other projects into play. We can help you to avoid errors or omissions from the outset.
Here are the four main actions we take to ensure that your project starts in the right way:
- In our opinion, a brief is not something which should be done by the Client in isolation. We have informal sessions with you to ensure that the brief is heading in the right direction.
- Where necessary we can bring in other people with the right experience to help with the brief. This may be the Architect, Engineers or a Contractor.
- We attempt to find the essence of a project so that you can identify what you are trying to achieve rather than how you are going to do it. This allows you to take account of changes to ways of working and advances in technology.
- We then bring the brief together by ensuring that the Client and the Design Team discuss the detail to check that it is sound in all respects.
If we stick to these 4 actions, in our experience, the project can start in the right way.