4.9 The Department's in-house team consisted of members of the Department's Procurement Executive (now the Defence Procurement Agency), who had a great deal of experience of procurement by traditional methods. This was, however, the first privately financed deal with which many of the in-house team had been involved, and bidders told us that the team initially had difficulties in understanding private finance concepts which they proposed. In bidders' views, this led to delays and some over-specification of the project.
4.10 In March 1995, prior to the issue of the first invitation to tender, the Department discussed the project with their Private Finance Unit. As the competition progressed and the Department decided that private finance offered the best solution, they involved their Private Finance Unit more closely with the competition.