Do the partnership arrangements ensure that the community can be well informed about the obligations of government and the private sector partner, and that these can be oversighted by the Auditor-General?
PPP projects are subject to the same whole of government openness and disclosure policies such as Freedom of Information requirements and contract publishing requirements.
The only contract matters withheld from voluntary disclosure are:
• trade secrets;
• genuinely confidential business information; and
• material which if disclosed would seriously harm the public interest.
Government must generally weigh the public interest in maintaining confidentiality against the public interest in disclosure. Confidentiality is particularly important during the bid stage where confidential commercial information is supplied by bidders and disclosure of cost structures would disadvantage the competitive bidding process. However, transparency of the bid process is paramount to give bidders certainty and meet probity requirements. Refer to the National PPP Guidelines Volume 3: Commercial Principles for Social Infrastructure Section 36.
When drafting contracts, government must ensure that appropriate information on the project's performance is available for release during the service period.
PPP projects must also publish a project summary within three months of financial close. Further detail is available in Annexure 8.