The outline business case must be provided to Cabinet for approval. Cabinet approval is also required for agencies to seek Expressions of Interest (EOI) from the private sector. The EOI brief will be expressed on a broad needs basis via the output specification. To reduce the expense of the EOI process to both public and private sectors, the Government requires only sufficient information from which to be able to assess the ability of the private sector to deliver the specified outputs and receive initial estimate of the cost of private sector delivery. Information received from the EOI can be used to refine the outline business case and discretionary elements in the output specification
The Government has advised that for PPPs it will allow the lodgement of expressions of interest, rather than full proposals. This will enable a short-list of preferred bidders to be selected at an early stage and reduce much of the uncertainty and costs for private sector bidders. . Accordingly depending upon the outcome of the EOI, the agency may decide to terminate further involvement of the private sector, provide an Invitation to Negotiate (ITN) to respondents or proceed to open tender. An ITN approach may be chosen, for example, if the outcome of the EOI suggests that only a limited number of respondents are likely to satisfy the project criteria and output specification. Open tender is appropriate where there is a relatively large field of prospective proponents and it is difficult to exclude a proponent or group of proponents solely on the basis of information received in the EOI.
The EOI and ITN must specify clearly that the responses do not under any circumstances commit the Government to proceeding with the project.