The Standard Project Agreements are designed to be used for the design, build, financing and maintenance of accommodation projects such as individual or grouped schools, colleges and community health facilities. Authorities procuring other kinds of assets may, however, find some of the approaches used in these contracts useful if developing versions for their specific purposes
The Standard Project Agreements exist in two forms, one for hub DBFM projects procured through the hub initiative and one for projects adopting NPD (non-profit distributing) principles. There is further comment on the differences between the two forms in Chapter 3: hub projects and Chapter 4: NPD projects. The two forms are deliberately as similar as possible to maximise efficiency and minimise costs in procurement for public and private sector users of the documents and to facilitate joined-up contract management across sectors in the future.
The bulk of the clauses have been taken from the first DBFM template agreement published by SFT for the hub programme, which in turn was developed from the current (as at June 2009) Scottish Standard Health PPP Contract, which was taken to be the form of contract that had been most recently used for Scottish revenue funded projects and most broadly acceptable to the market. Where changes have been made, they (and the alternative/recommended drafting in Appendix 2 of this Guide) have mostly been based on market precedents.