Connecting with Stakeholders – May 2017

As the business voice for architects in Alberta, the Consulting Architects of Alberta (CAA) is constantly connecting with stakeholders to discuss issues that impact our members.

 

One of the most significant touchpoints for the CAA is our ongoing work and consistent communication with key stakeholders. Some of our recent activities have included meeting with the:

  • City of Edmonton and setting up a liaison group to work with and assist the refinement of the new Integrated Infrastructure Services (IIS) team and how they work with industry.
  • University of Alberta and working with them to improve some proposal and contract wording.
  • City of Calgary with whom we have had significant input into their new, yet to be released, procurement process, Master Services Agreement and their Design Build Procurement document. We are happy to report that their continued approach to project award remains QBS-based on the CAA Fee and Scope Guideline.

 

The CAA is also in attendance at AI’s quarterly Industry Liaison Committee and have, over the last two years, been working with AI on improvements to their procurement process and contract clauses – with some clauses unacceptable to industry put in a “parking lot” list of items to later work on. And coming up in June is a series of meetings to work on these parking lot items from our earlier discussions about AI RFPs.

 

We have met with Minister Mason who has committed to continued work on behalf of AI to improve their documents to bring fairness into their contracts. AI (and AT with CEA) has also agreed to start to test a QBS model.

 

As well, we continue to communicate with Alberta Health Services and some of the issues in their RFPs.

 

In addition to these meetings, we have also been very busy with our CAA committees:

  • The Fee and Scope Committee recently releasedVersion 3 of the Fee and Scope Guide, which is now the most current guide available for architects.
  • The Procurement and Contracts Committee has continued to meet every month to hammer out issues in contracts from a variety of sources

 

Additionally, we have made significant advancement with the past AAA Council and have begun to clarify our mutual roles in industry. At the September Council meeting of the AAA, we will be presenting the CAA’s achievements and our efforts and discuss further alignment opportunities with the AAA.

 

Very recently we have been in discussions with other affiliated association such as the Edmonton Construction Association, Clark Builders, etc. to find ways to best leverage our collective resources.

 

The CAA has also started the planning for the 2017 CAA Annual General Meeting, which will take place on Thursday September 21.  Please mark the date on your calendar and plan to attend.