Last edited 17 Dec 2020

Balanced scorecard

The government suggests that a balanced scorecard (BSC) approach to procurement is:

…is a way of developing a procurement (e.g. the requirements and evaluation criteria) so that more straightforward matters such as cost, are balanced against more complex issues such as social and wider economic considerations.

The approach can be used on any projects, but in October 2016, was adopted by the Cabinet office for projects of more than £10 million. Ref gov.uk.

Government departments are encouraged to adopt the approach where there are clear benefits to doing so, when designing major works, infrastructure and capital investment procurements where the value is more than £10 million. This including works in the National Infrastructure and Construction Pipeline, published in December 2016.

The approach has already been used by the Olympic Delivery Authority, and for the HS2 programme, as well as on private projects such as the procurement of Heathrow T5.

The government suggests that the ‘model balanced scorecard strategic policy themes’ are:

All departments with in-scope construction, infrastructure and capital investment procurements must:

Consider each of the Strategic Themes and Critical Success Factors (CSFs) of the model scorecard in relation to the objectives of the project, determining whether there are associated requirements that should be incorporated into the procurement.
Identify whether for a specific exercise there are other project or sector-specific themes and CSFs with associated requirements.
Produce a procurement-specific balanced scorecard that captures and communicates the objectives for the procurement, how these relate to specific project requirements and thus to evaluation of tenders.
Publish their balanced scorecard with the procurement documentation to form a clear summary of how the procurement will deliver the project vision.