The Ministry of Defence has this morning confirmed that AECOM, Mott MacDonald, URS and WYG have won places on its four-year consultancy framework.

As Principal Support Providers for construction design and project management services the firms will share around £30m a year over the four-year duration of the framework.

They will aid delivery of £9bn worth of construction associated with the changes within the army structure and the return of 15,000 troops from Germany.

But the appointment of URS to the new framework is set to raise questions about its role as both a service provider for the Defence Infrastructure Organisation and strategic top-level business partner.

URS ,in a consortium with Capita and PA Consulting ,was also last month confirmed as DIO’s Strategic Business Partner.

This 10-year deal worth around £400m has been set up to install private sector know-how to procurement planning and management at DIO.

The Government hopes the new set up will help to deliver substantial savings for the taxpayer, which could reach over £300m a year during the 10-year contract.

URS will support the operational management of the estate and management of capital projects.

A source told the Enquirer: “In effect, URS will as the Strategic Business Partner be spending defence allocated public funds and could be demanding services of itself as Principle Support Provider.

“It now looks like the scenario where URS is involved in a management consortia ordering work from URS with public money is about to come to fruition.”

It is understood that URS has already set out in a document for MoD how it could act as both the Strategic Business Partner and the Principle Support Provider side-stepping any conflict of interest issues.