The consideration of maintenance issues during the design process in the UK public sector

Maintenance is always required on buildings, for which budgets need to be allocated by building owners, particularly when the buildings are relatively old. However, building maintenance managers do not expect to be having to allocate excessive budgets to buildings which are suffering maintenance problems early in their life span. The aim of the research was to measure practitioners' experiences and opinions as to whether three techniques (value management [VM], whole life costing [WLC] and the Design Quality Indicator [DQI]) could be effectively utilized during the design stage of new building projects to prevent or reduce premature and unnecessary future building maintenance. The research method involved a postal questionnaire survey of a sample of UK local authority maintenance managers and architects from which 54 valid responses were obtained. Quantitative data were analysed using descriptive statistics and qualitative data, in the form of respondents' comments to some questionnaire questions, were content analysed. The results of the research show significant differences between the current utilization of the three techniques and the survey respondents' evaluation of their future potential use to reduce further, unnecessary, building maintenance. The research findings support the dilemma often faced in the public sector between the funding of new building projects from capital finances, and the funding of running and maintenance costs from revenue budgets. The research concludes that a gap exists between the current use of the three techniques and practitioners' opinions of a significantly higher use in the future. The research impact is a greater understanding of the consideration and evaluation of maintenance issues during the building design process by using analytical techniques.