Committee Reports > List of Committees > Joint > 1980 > Committee on Commercial State-Sponsored Bodies > Report No. 12 - National Building Agency, Limited

APPENDIX 18

LETTER TO CLERK TO JOINT COMMITTEE FROM WEXFORD COUNTY COUNCIL

The Wexford County Manager has asked me to reply to your letter of 14th November, 1979 to him about the National Building Agency Limited. I regret the delay in writing to you and I hope the information in this letter is still in time for consideration by the Joint Committee.

The National Building Agency has been employed by the Wexford County Council to build two housing schemes at Gorey, and by the Wexford Corporation, Enniscorthy Urban District Council and New Ross Urban District Council to build schemes in their respective areas. In the case of the County Council where ten or twelve schemes may be under construction at any one time it makes for variety to have a mixture of designs from the Council’s Architect and outside designers, i.e. Consultants employed by the Council or the NBA. In the case of the Urban Authorities where there was in the past a tendency to employ a variety of Consultants, it is now considered better to engage the NBA. Some of the Urban Authorities have only part-time engineering staff. Wexford Corporation which has a full-time staff has found it impossible to maintain the permanent establishment. In these circumstances it is advantageous to deal with an organisation which can carry a housing scheme through from start to finish.

Recent experience has been that consultation between the local authorities and the NBA to agree a brief has been satisfactory, more so than in earlier years. Consultation to agree housing design and construction programme has been satisfactory in the case of the Urban authorities and marginally less so in the case of the County Council. Because of the system which was used by the County Council of discussions at District Committee, consultations at the design stage are essential so that the local Members have the opportunity of considering the plans and making a suggestion about them.

It is also considered necessary that discussions on design take place between the Council’s technical staff and the Architects who are actually designing the scheme for the NBA, whether outside consultants or members of the NBA staff.

The supervision of construction appears to have been adequate and no undue complaints of defective workmanship have arisen. It is, nevertheless, considered essential that the Council have the facility of liaisoning with the Clerk of Works on each scheme, and that full-time Clerks of Works be assigned to particular schemes for the full period of construction. It is also desirable that contact be maintained between the NBA at all levels and the Council during the course of construction of the schemes.

While the normal contract procedure for rectifying faults in the maintenance period applies, it is desirable that the Council be supplied with schedules of the items listed for attention in the maintenance period as some of them may recur without the Council’s being aware that they may have been the responsibility of the Contractor.

In summary, the experience of the Wexford local authorities have been that the National Building Agency has provided a satisfactory service to a high standard and have fulfilled their obligations to the various Councils at a very reasonable expense.

19th December 1979