Infrastructure procurement commences with the identification of a service requirement. The government has well-established, regional-based strategic planning and service review processes for agencies, including such instruments as the State Infrastructure Plan, individual agency strategic plans and associated capital investment strategic plans.
Government articulates its key priorities in terms of outcomes that meet specific community needs. Under the government's Managing for Outcomes Framework, agencies identify the outputs (services) they believe will best achieve the required outcomes. For example, a required outcome of government is to improve the wellbeing of Indigenous citizens. An output to meet this required outcome would be the provision of health infrastructure and ancillary services by Queensland Health.
If an agency receives an unsolicited proposal from a private party addressing a service requirement that has been identified by that party, the proposal will be assessed for priority against the relevant agency's strategic plan and the state's relevant infrastructure plans. If the proposal is considered by the agency to be a priority, it will be progressed either,
∙ within this framework in the same manner as agency-generated outputs; or
∙ pursuant to an exclusive mandate (for further detail on exclusive mandates refer to Appendix 1).
Any unsolicited proposal seeking to place risk, cost or payment obligation upon the government must, if pursued, be subjected to a competitive bidding process to ensure that it represents a value for money outcome for government.
In progressing unsolicited proposals, the government would take all reasonable steps to protect the genuine intellectual property of the Private Sector. However, it is the responsibility of any Proponent who considers their proposal, concept or design to include intellectual and commercial property to demonstrate to the satisfaction of the government that it is likely to possess commercial value and utility in the marketplace. Specifically, the government would not reveal a Proponent's intellectual property when subjecting the project to a competitive bidding process. This could be achieved by developing an output specification that excludes any reference that may infringe upon intellectual property rights.