In line with a maturing Australian market, Infrastructure Australia and its respective partner organisations in the Commonwealth, States and Territories are looking for further improvement in the procurement and delivery of PPP projects. Despite considering many aspects of the Australian PPP procurement process to be world leading, private sector participants continue to identify the efficiency of bid processes and high bid costs as areas of possible improvement. Additionally, several market participants, including some with significant international PPP experience, have expressed concern about perceived barriers to their participation in Australian PPP projects.
Accordingly, a priority next step for Infrastructure Australia in its role of facilitating continuing improvement in infrastructure delivery is to identify and address, where considered appropriate, barriers to competition and inefficiencies in the procurement of PPPs. This initiative is consistent with Infrastructure Australia's mandate to identify any impediments to investment in nationally significant infrastructure and identify strategies to remove any impediments identified as well as promote investment in infrastructure.
As part of this process, Infrastructure Australia has appointed KPMG to undertake a "Review of Barriers to Competition and Efficiency in the Procurement of PPPs".
For the purpose of this Review, we have defined:
• "barriers to competition" as being factors that might reduce the competitiveness of the PPP procurement process such as to prevent Governments from achieving best value for money (even if they still achieve value for money in an absolute sense)
• "efficiency in procurement" as being the absence of excessive and unnecessary costs or delays in the PPP procurement process from the perspective of both Governments and bidders.
The purpose of this Review is to recommend potential strategies to Governments to resolve those key issues identified as important to the continued improvement of the Australian PPP market. The Review draws together:
• key themes raised during market consultations with existing and potential PPP market participants (Participants)
• lessons learnt from a review of other leading international jurisdictions that have active and mature PPP markets.
This Review looks only at the PPP market and potential improvements to its procurement processes. It does not consider broader issues such as a comparison with other methods for procuring infrastructure projects.