Qualifications-Based Selection

Qualifications-Based Selection (QBS) is a procurement process established by the United States Congress as a part of the Brooks Act (Public Law 92-582; see also 40 USC §1101 et seq.) and further developed as a process for public agencies to use for the selection of architectural and engineering services for public construction projects. It is a competitive contract procurement process whereby consulting firms submit qualifications to a procuring entity (owner) who evaluates and selects the most qualified firm, and then negotiates the project scope of work, schedule, budget, and consultant fee.

Crucially, under a QBS procurement, the cost of the work (price) is not considered when making the initial selection of the best or most appropriate provider of the professional services required. Fees for services will be negotiated, however, following selection and before contracting.

Many states in the US have adopted their own versions of the Brooks Act, commonly referred to as "Little Brooks Acts" or "mini-Brooks Acts." For example, Georgia has adopted QBS as appropriate under its state law. Practical application in Georgia state construction procurements has extended the use of QBS into several areas of professional construction services other than architecture, engineering, land surveying, and landscape architecture. These areas have included project and program management, construction management at-risk (CM/GC), design-build, and building commissioning. Other states have adopted varying interpretations.

Public owners have developed policies and procedures for Qualifications-Based Selection to govern procurements in which price is not the determining factor in selection. Price will be taken into consideration under QBS but not for the purposes of the public owner's determination of the most suitable and qualified provider of construction services.

Qualifications-Based Selection was developed because public owners lacked procurement tools for services for which price competition made no sense. For example, creative services cannot be fairly priced before the creative process has taken place. An architect can hardly "hard bid" (submit a firm price for) a project when part of the cost to the architectural firm (and therefore its needs for compensation) will be determined later in the process of discovery of the owner's needs and intentions.

Further, lowest cost is widely recognized as the poorest criterion for service selection when quality and professional creativity are sought. An apt analogy from outside of the construction arena often cited is in the area of medical care: Nobody willingly chooses a surgeon based upon a doctor's willingness to perform an operation most cheaply.

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