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This was one of the challenges that met St Helen's head of contract and asset management Eric Fairclough when the council started to create 'integrated teams'. "Local authority clients with authorities of this size don't always have the technical expertise that qualifies them to be a construction client," explains assistant chief executive Mike Foy.

That's why 12 months ago Fairclough put together a special pack, bringing together all the things an inexperienced client needs to know. And in August 2003, the council went one step further by employing a postgrad student from Salford University to act as a client adviser in a 12-month pilot.

Getting the client involved had long been a goal for Fairclough. He was already involving clients in writing briefs before Egan's report but without having the builder there too, there was no reality check. "There was always the belief that the contractor would somehow overwrite the costs," he says.

Judith Godley, senior assistant director of St Helens LEA, has had experience on the client side of building projects under traditional and partnering arrangements. In the past, although schools had the chance to look at briefs and designs, they didn't know what they were looking at: "If somebody brings something to you on a piece of paper, you think you have got what you want. On every new school, no sooner had they put the key in the lock than they would start saying: 'If only we'd thought of that, things would work so much more efficiently...'"

The Knock-on effect
For Godley, getting users to make the difficult decisions on how they will spend a limited budget, makes a huge difference. "In the past many schools just felt as if this was something that someone was doing to them."

She gives the example of one City Learning Centre where the teachers had to sacrifice integrated security shutters for car parking in order to keep to budget. But the design allows for such shutters to be fitted in the future if funds become available. So instead of being disgruntled because they haven't got what they wanted or breaking the budget, the customer is happy.

And Godley is happy. Because if headmaster A spends £1.5m rather than £1.3m on his City Learning Centre, she has to find the money somewhere. And that means visiting headmaster B to tell him he can't have a new roof until next year.

But how can a teacher, or someone like Godley from the LEA, take time out of their day jobs to design buildings? She admits it is time-consuming but says that she and the head teachers see it as positive time which will save many more hours later on when problems are avoided. "There is the feeling that you are getting it right from the start, not waiting for it to go wrong and then calling a meeting."

St Helen's have eased the pain of meetings by supporting the core group, consisting of client, funder, council, contractor, with sub-groups for design, finance, health and safety and communications. This means that clients are not having to look at every decision in every area. Specialists do that. The core group is kept abreast of its decisions and their effect on the budget with a running list of costs which is updated and referenced to each meeting.

Communicating at the right level is key. "You have got to be at pains to drop the conversation down to the right level of understanding, even if it takes longer," says Fairclough. "You have to go round – not in a disrespectful way – and say: 'Are you sure you understand that? Do you know what we're talking about?'"

Partnering progress
This is not a common skill in his 35-strong department admits Fairclough. "If we had lots of partnering projects running concurrently we would struggle." But this he is trying to resolve by having members of staff shadow partnering teams, sitting in on meetings to learn the ropes.

St Helen's first step – or rather leap – into partnering was called Bleak Hill School, a demonstration project which received plenty of publicity since it was awarded to Willmott Dixon 100% on quality. Back then in 1999, very few of the contractors who bid for the work seemed to have any idea what partnering was all about, says Fairclough. There were only four – those who were called for interview – who were near the mark. Nowadays contractors are a lot more clued up and the council looks at a weighting of 80% quality, 20% price.

Involving integration
Since then it has used partnering on several projects such as housing refurbishment, a special school and the City Learning Centres where people can get IT skills. It has worked largely with Wilmott Dixon, Shepherd and Mansell on housing refurbishment.

Now Fairclough is keen to get even more people involved in the integrated team in order to see the bigger picture better. Do we really need that building? Does it fit in with something else we are doing? These are questions he's keen to start asking.

One of their latest jobs – not yet awarded at the time of interview – involved two different projects and two different clients. One is a Surestart nursery and office, the other a new educational centre within a secure unit. Fairclough hopes this creative bundling will allow a contractor to make economies in office overheads, management and material purchases.

The council is reviewing the way it handles all its operations in the light of the lessons learned from using Rethinking Construction and Best Value principles – both within the property department and elsewhere. Foy, in his role, is responsible for all procurement. The next department to get the treatment could be social services.

"I am hoping that by creating an integrated team between perhaps the carer in the home, social services and the service provider we can get the right service at the right price delivered at the right time."