Just four design competitions were launched in the UK via an Official Journal of the European Union notice this year – compared with hundreds in France and Germany, according to a new crunch of official statistics.

Russell Curtis, who campaigns on procurement issues and who unearthed the figures, said the data suggested a degree of risk-aversion among public-sector procurers that effectively excluded smaller practices from showing their ideas via competitions.

As well as being a founding partner of the RCKa practice, Curtis is a director of the Project Compass community interest company, which provides free access to Ojeu architectural tender notices in the UK and other market intelligence to the sector.

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