The Guidance establishes a qualitative framework for evaluating the Viability, Desirability and Achievability of a project. Under these headings, various aspects of scope options, procurement options and effective delivery are considered. The Guidance contains pro forma assessment tables to be used at this stage to assist project owners in evaluating the qualitative VfM delivered by a project. These pro forma tables have been amended for the current Revenue Funded Investment Programme to:
a) remove references to funding route selection as this has already been determined for projects in the programme;
b) take account of the standard form of NPD and hub DBFM contract that has been developed with a standardised risk allocation that project owners need not justify, unless they propose to depart from it4;
c) reflect a broader vision of overall project VfM in the current economic climate;
d) incorporate consideration of Effective Delivery into the qualitative assessment.
The revised pro forma tables are included as Annex 1 for the Project Level Assessment and Annex 2 for the Procurement Level Assessment. It will generally be the case that the Project Level Assessment tables will be submitted with the pre-procurement business case, and the Procurement Level Assessment tables with the pre-contract award business case (see Section 4). In completing these tables, reference may be made to other sections of the business case document.
The Guidance points in particular to the importance of strong competition to deliver VfM. For NPD projects consideration should be given at an early stage as to how the market is to be engaged and managed to maximise project competition.
At the procurement level, SFT is required to undertake an ongoing evaluation of Effective Delivery through the KSR process, for which there are specific approaches for NPD projects and those undertaken under the hub DBFM programme. Separate guidance on the KSR process is available from SFT.
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4 Note that the standard form NPD / hub DBFM contracts are applicable to accommodation projects only.