Buying Design, Where are we now? Associate Parliamentary Design Innovation Group Term Paper

‘Design ...The purposeful move from a current situation to a preferred situation.’ – Herbert Simon In 2010 the Associate Parliamentary Design and Innovation Group (APDIG) published a report critiquing government procurement practice as it related to design services. The main accusation was that government too often tried to buy design as though it were a discrete commodity, rather than a creative service, and that this seriously hampered the ultimate outcome for both buyer and supplier. This paper brings an update on the state of design procurement, including the results of an industry consultation conducted by our partners on the initial report, the Design Business Association.