Chances for the Competitive Dialogue: An economic impact assessment of changing procurement legislation for the competitive dialogue procedure

The competitive dialogue is a procedure used by Rijkswaterstaat to obtain the most economically -effective contract available for ‘particularly complex’ projects. The procedure entails a dialogue, which may be phased, with the aim of developing one or more suitable alternatives capable of meeting its requirements. Due to changing legislation several issues will influence the policy for the application of the competitive dialogue. This changing legislation takes the form of a proposal for a new Directive on public procurement by the European Commission and a new Dutch procurement law. This anticipatory research poses the question: To what extent is the competitive dialogue implementable in an economically viable manner? To answer this question the research analyses the aforementioned changing legislation. In addition, the current policy of Rijkswaterstaat is reviewed and a cross comparison with the new legislation is performed to see what policy adjustments must be made. The research finds several chances for improvement on the implementation of the competitive dialogue procedure. These chances are translated into scenarios and their effect is analyzed using a Multi Criteria Analysis. Finally, these effects are measured against cases where the competitive dialogue has already been implemented. The report concludes that the competitive dialogue procedure is economically viable under the current form of implementation by Rijkswaterstaat because it leads to the expected value on a project’s Critical Success Factors. When the new Dutch procurement law comes into effect the current form of implementation of the competitive dialogue procedure remains economically viable because very little policy adjustments are necessary. However, in both the current and upcoming legislation there is room for improving the cost-effectiveness of the procedure by limiting the gold-plating effect, this effect is the addition of burdens by national legislation or policy in contrast to the minimum demands stemming from European guidelines. The report is written in the English language yet may contain references in Dutch. It encompasses 85 pages and 25102 words.Design and Construction ProcessesStructural EngineeringCivil Engineering and Geoscience