The Contractor's costs will include the costs of utilities needed to perform the Services and the National Non Domestic Rates (NNDR) relating to the sites used. Historically there have been a variety of ways of handling the risk of changes to these costs in PFI contracts.
The WIDP Contract (Clause 48) makes it the Contractor's responsibility to pay all such costs and then charge the Authority through a discrete component of the Unitary Charge. The indexation applying to this component may vary from that applied to other parts of the Unitary Charge.
The Contract Management Manual should include appropriate procedures to ensure utility costs and NNDR are dealt with appropriately. To the extent that the costs are recovered through the Unitary Charge this will be a sub-element of the section dealing with the Payment Mechanism. However the Contract Manager should be mindful that the Utilities and NNDR and potentially other pass through costs may be treated separately from the main Payment Mechanism and, if necessary, adapt the Contract Management Manual accordingly.