Thank you, Mr. Chairman. In every given year, we have design-build contracts. We minimize the design-builds. There were only five in the previous year's budget, I believe. Before, maybe about 10 years ago or so, there was a lot of design-build work. What we heard from a lot of the communities is, when you tender design-build contracts, you are basically favouring major companies or people with a lot of money to do them and it freezes out small companies and community involvement. This is what occurred in the past.
So, what we've done is we design separately, build separately, ship materials in separately and do all kinds of things to break the contracts down. Now what we're hearing from some people is that they want to go back to design-build. We, as a department, are open to that. If that's what they want to do, that's fine, as long as there are cost controls and standards are met. As far as timing of projects, Members are well aware that we have changed our capital cycle to the fall, which was a good idea.
But, only doing the one thing and the one thing, alone, doesn't mean you are going to get out to tender early or get your project started up on time. There is a whole process of involvement, with many different parties, that has to be followed to get the tenders out on time. One thing has come to light, and it is very clear: until we develop clear guidelines of capital standards and criteria, along with the client departments, it doesn't make a difference when you pass this capital budget, because you'll always have that problem.
We have to have a proper process and planning so when there is a project coming, the planning is done. There is a lack of funding in some departments to properly plan for capital projects, so that has to be addressed as well. Up-to-date versions capital standards and criteria, have to be developed as soon as possible with the departments so, instead of asking for palaces, we'll build houses and it should work better.