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NBS Building

NBS Building enables you to write concise, technically accurate and up to date specifications for building projects.

Public procurement legislation in the EU

Across the European Union, construction-sector specifiers will have encountered EU Directive 2004/18/EC, governing procurement in public projects, particularly Article 23 Technical specifications, and Annex VI Definition of certain technical specifications. This Directive is about the coordination of procedures for the award of public works contracts, public supply contracts and public service contracts. For specifiers, the Directive restricts the use of specification by reference to manufacturers (brands), and requires the use of 'or equivalent' wherever specifications refer to manufacturers or to standards.

However, many construction professionals prefer to specify by brand, e.g. where aesthetics are important, even for public sector projects where this approach is deprecated in the interests of competition and public probity.

Along with the other European master specification organisations, most of whom members of the International Construction Information Society (ICIS), RIBA Enterprises is conducting research into how this Directive affects project specification on public works. This research will investigate the extent to which European construction professionals specify by brand, whether or not doing so has got them into trouble, or if avoiding brand specifications has led to difficulties.

As part of this, a survey is available that allows you to make your views known to both ICIS, and the EU; anonymised results will be used to create a report on the subject, which will be submitted to the EU later in 2009 with a view to reviewing the Directive, if this seems necessary.

All responses will be treated confidentially, and findings will also be published in the NBS Journal.