Project interviews and visits
We identified 11 projects that had completed the benchmarking/market testing process from a range of sources: market knowledge from the Treasury and PUK (taking account of PUK's project database and their 2006 survey which incorporated some questions on value testing), market knowledge from the private sector and knowledge from within the National Audit Office arising from surveys recently undertaken by NAO PFI studies. We visited each of the 11 projects and in conjunction with a contact at each project, we set out to arrange an interview with:
■ an operations/facilities manager who represented the public sector on the day to day management of the services that were value tested;
■ a finance manager who reviewed the costs and prices that the private contractor generated as a result of the value testing exercise;
■ a facilities executive who had an oversight role in relation to the value testing;
■ a locally based manager working for the SPV, ideally with involvement in the value testing exercise;
■ someone with user experience of the services provided both before and after the value testing; and,
■ a brief courtesy meeting with the public sector Chief Executive.
It was not always possible to arrange for all of these interviews given staff availability but by the end of our fieldwork visits we had interviewed 63 people in total: Authority (39) (including chief executives, finance officers, contract managers and users), project company/contractor (19) and advisers (5). The interviews were semi-structured, using a standard template that was adapted to suit the interviewee and project context. We complemented these 63 fieldwork interviews with further interviews conducted with key private sector stakeholders: several contractors and project companies, the Business Services Association (representing the interests of major companies providing outsourced services) and the PPP Forum (a private sector industry body representing PFI funders and contractors). We also discussed key developments in guidance and policy regarding benchmarking/market testing with Department Private Finance Units, the Treasury and its PFI Operational Taskforce at PUK.