This award reflects the Prime Minister's personal interest in excellence in public buildings, and his commitment to raising the standard of public building projects. The award will be made to the most outstanding building, and will be announced at the British Construction Industry awards on 24 October. A copy of the full text of the Chief Secretary's speech is attached. Good Morning, It is important that we involve people across the whole of the public sector in promoting good design, and I am glad to see such interest at today's conference. It is important to recognise that well designed buildings can reduce the overall costs of providing services, and they can increase the effectiveness of those services.
Good design is fundamental to value for money.
If we thought that 'best value' meant 'cheap', and ignored the long-term savings good design can bring, we would be making a false economy. Best value is not the lowest price, but the best combination of whole life costs and quality. That doesn't mean, of course, that the highest cost is best value either. When we took office, we faced both a record of chronic under investment in public services and a 27 billion deficit on the public finances, so our first task was to create stability and sustainable public finances. We have made the tough choices we needed to.