2.2 In accordance with the principles of the Private Finance Initiative, the Department based the procurement on a specification of outputs that the new facilities should provide (e.g. quantity of space, services provided, environmental conditions maintained), rather than inputs (e.g. materials or design to be used).
2.3 The redevelopment of the NPL involved the construction of over 400 laboratories. Many of the laboratories had to meet exacting environmental conditions, which varied according to the type of research. Consequently, elements of the output specification were more demanding than any other output specification then prepared under the Private Finance Initiative. In addition, the specification for many of the laboratories required that a variety of different output conditions had to be met at the same time.