Construction manager Bovis Lend Lease is to show 100 leading figures from the industry around the £431m Scottish parliament building next month.

The firm is to host the visit on Friday 26 November, as the parliament does not normally sit on that day. The event will include an address from presiding officer George Reid.

A Bovis spokesperson said the event had been arranged because of interest from clients and architects. He added: “It would be naive to suppose that there will not be talk about some of the challenges during the project.”

The open day follows the official opening on Saturday 9 October by the Queen.

Last month Lord Fraser published a 267-page report on the troubled history of the project that criticised civil servants overseeing the project and the decision to use construction management.

Bovis rejected the criticism of its performance, which centred on the allegedly over-hasty scheduling of work. Harry Thorburn, managing director of Bovis Lend Lease (Scotland), also defended the use of construction management for the scheme, saying: “The reality is that construction management was the only contract option for a client wanting to start a project that was still at the design concept stage.”

The job’s QS, Davis Langdon, also fended off criticism of its role in the parliament’s foyer roof, the cost of which rose from £1.5m to £7.4m. Senior partner Rob Smith said the firm had made it clear to the client that the roof could not be delivered for the budget allocated.