But Constructionline fears another £650m-a-year is still being wasted across the public and private sector by unnecessary pre-qualification duplication.

A recent survey carried out by the organisation revealed that a single PQQ takes a construction supplier an average of 4.5 hours to complete, costing an average of £147 in time that they can be working – and earning.

For any typical business, bidding for more than one job, the annual cost could run into thousands of pounds worth of lost money and time.

Sifting through PQQs and keeping information up to date is a similarly wasteful job for clients. It costs construction buyers £300 in time, staffing and administration to review one PQQ.

Philip Prince, sales and marketing director at Constructionline, is urgingthe industry to review its procurement processes.

He said: “In the last year alone, we have helped our members make efficiency savings in excess of £165m, which raises the question of how much more could be saved if the entire industry adopted more efficient tendering processes.”

To become a certified member, suppliers fill out just one pre-qualification questionnaire (PQQ) and their information is assessed to industry standards and retained on Constructionline’s database for prospective buyers to search.

In the last year alone, over 250,000 searches for suppliers’ information have been made by buyers through Constructionline’s database.

By requesting suppliers’ Constructionline membership numbers when advertising a new opportunity, suppliers can bypass stage one of the PQQ – saving both parties time.

In the last year, buyers have used this process to find new suppliers on at least 500 adverts.

Prince said: “We know from surveys carried out among our own suppliers that tendering for new work opportunities is time consuming, especially when you consider that 40 per cent of our suppliers said they win one in 10 of those contracts they apply for.

“If we can take away the burden of having to fill out the first stage of the pre-qualification process, we can save suppliers essential time that could otherwise be spent earning.

“Over two thirds of suppliers interviewed earlier this year told us that clients could be more helpful during the tender process. As such, we are working with our own buyers to address these concerns by encouraging them to look at the impact they are having on their supply chains and to deliver sustainable procurement.

“Our aim is to make pre-qualification as simple as possible for both suppliers and buyers, which we hope will deliver more efficiency savings for our industry.”

for more information about Constructionline click here