The Performance Specification should clearly define the quality standards of facility provision and services to be achieved. Standards are likely to be a combination of:
• Provincial or municipal standards
• Industry standards (ISO etc)
• Statutory or regulatory standards
• Best practice by benchmarking.
Without clear standards, the Performance Specification will be open to wide misinterpretation in terms of the required facility provision and service levels, and therefore cost. Responses from proponents are more likely to be less consistent, making a fair evaluation difficult.
A lack of clarity in the Performance Specification will also make it harder to build up the public sector comparator (PSC) properly, making value for money more difficult to establish. The PSC must be constructed on the same basis as the Performance Specification so that the comparison is on a like-for-like basis. Enhanced standards are sometimes specified in the Performance Specification but the PSC is costed based on traditional standards. This does not provide a good basis for establishing value for money (see Management Framework: Assessment).