Key findings relating to the operational phase: 

•  ninety-one per cent of respondents rated 'availability' as 'good' or 'very good', with 90 per cent considering availability meets or exceeds expectations;

•  soft facilities management was rated 'good' or 'very good' by 71 per cent of respondents, although 85 per cent said that this service met or exceeded expectations;

•  cleaning is a particular problem due to the buoyancy of the employment market;

•  hard facilities management was rated 'good' or 'very good' by 57 per cent of respondents, and 69 per cent considered this service met or exceeded expectations; 'poor' ratings were mainly due to the slow resolution of snagging issues;

•  it is too early to draw conclusions about the impact of PPP on longer term maintenance;

•  issues were raised about the interaction between hard and soft facilities management providers;

•  respondents did not think that services were better or worse because they were PPP projects;

•  no evidence was found that PPP operators delivered a better or worse standard of serviced than the public sector;

•  several authorities were surprised by the input required on their part;

•  public private partnership contracts are seen as less flexible than non-PPP contracts;

•  making changes to the contracts was time consuming and slow, therefore the public sector sought to wrap up a number of changes in a single negotiation;

•  changes are rarely incorporated into the unitary charge mechanism because of the complication of agreeing the financial impact;

•  works' costs for contract changes are perceived as expensive in the absence of the ability to tender these;

•  authorities noted that in the case of operational risks, ambiguities in the contract drafting made it unclear where risks lie and presented opportunities for risks to shift;

•  interaction between hard and soft facilities management in the health sector, and the risks associated with the needs of different user groups, are not always clearly defined in the contract; and

•  the majority of relationships between authorities and contractors are good and both parties recognise the advantages of developing a long term partnership.