46 To get an indication of the contributing factors to delivering to contracted price, our survey asked those 59 projects reporting delivery to contracted price to rate potential factors from very important to not at all important. Figure 10 overleaf shows the percentage of respondents stating those factors which were very important.
47 The most commonly stated reasons for projects delivering to price were 'the fixed price nature of the PFI contract' and 'clear output specifications'. As with the reasons for delivering on time, many project managers cited a range of factors as important to successful delivery. This suggests the benefits of PFI, such as a detailed planning stage and contractual incentives, were being realised in a majority of cases, complementing good practice in project management.
48 There is limited evidence of authorities reducing the scope of projects (known as de-scoping) to achieve delivery to contracted price. Four respondents (from 56 respondents) reported some de-scoping for affordability reasons after the contract had been signed. One of these projects de-scoped the asset but stated this did not adversely affect service delivery. The others reported de-scoping the support services, two of which had small adverse affects on service provision. We were unable to determine whether these were the only projects where de-scoping occurred. There was a high proportion of respondents (26 per cent) who did not know whether or not there had been any de-scoping. As with other aspects of construction experience, there seems to be a lack of corporate memory as in many cases staff involved with construction have left the project.