Professional status

Arup points out that in most parts of the world, site investigation is treated differently than in the UK. It is accorded professional status and as a result a specialist branch of consulting engineers has developed. In fact, the way we operate here is fast becoming unique.

Arup holds strong feelings about site investigations, and is perhaps alone in taking the approach it has adopted further than anyone else in this country.

First and foremost, Arup very defi¬nitely both initiates and controls the site investigation, but so thorough are the "preliminaries" that the on-site boring is often little more than a confirmation of the "groundwork." It all really boils down to understand¬ing the site completely. If you do, not only are you in the best position to initiate the site investigation proper, but more accurate results are inevitable and much reduced contractural costs more likely than in the case of blindly following a boring grid. When a job first arrives, checks are made against previous re¬cords for information on the site. "One thing about this country is that you can hardly go anywhere without someone having been there before." says Arup. An archeologist also gets to work. This new departure has proved particularly use¬ful—not only for getting additional information about buildings and natural, but buried, features of the site; but an archeologist can often gain access to information out-of-bounds to anyone else. He is also able to gauge the archeological interest of the site and so arrange for any digs to be complete by the time the main contract gets underway.

We'll come back to the Arup ap¬proach again later on; the moral to come out though, is that unless you diverge from existing standard prac¬tice in site investigation, the chances of a worthwhile report at the end are much reduced.

Primary mistake

Perhaps the largest single factor responsible for unsatisfactory site investigations is that they are let on a contractural basis. In other words they are put out to tender—and a tender has to be specific. This is completely the wrong ap¬proach. The relationship between a site investigation company and the commissioning body, whether it be a consulting engineer or authority, should be a professional one. Attitudes are becoming more enlightened, but site investigations are still all too often regarded with scepticism—a necessary evil to too many.

It is on this question of professionalism that the distinction between the specialist consulting engineer and the competent site investigation company with the expertise to carry on through to complete foundation design, appears at its narrowest. In some cases, the only distinction seems to be the question of tendering; other than this we do appear to have more specialist consultants than meets the eye. How¬ever, tendering is not the only distinc¬tion.

Even if it were to be abolished, and we immediately "increased" the number of soils consultants as a result, then, irrespective of individual integrity, these new arrivals could only provide a true consultancy service if they had no contractural association. Only then would their investigation proposals and foundation designs carry the seal of impartiality.

Geoff Child has mixed feelings about tendering. Although he recognises it as being contrary to achieving the ideal, he revises that it can protect the client against being taken for a ride. This needs very rapid qualification, for it is under the tendering system that the client invariably is taken for a ride. Child says that Soil Mechanics is only happy about a tender if it is to be offered to a selective list of companies —in other words, those who are reputable. The real problems occur with an open list, where the client is tempted by a really low tender which frequently results in a poor report. Local authorities seem particularly inclined to accept the lowest tender— a very unwise practice.