Value for money is the key driver of all procurement decisions, including the use of alliance contracting for delivering and/or operating infrastructure. For complex projects with high risks that cannot be fully dimensioned, alliancing can potentially offer the best procurement strategy for achieving the government's investment objectives. The alliance approach allows such risks to be worked through collaboratively as the project develops.
The planning and implementation of all alliance contracting by agencies should be consistent with this alliancing policy.3
It is important for all agencies contemplating alliance contracting to benchmark their planning and procurement practices against the alliancing guidance material published from time to time by Treasury, as well as to adhere to all other relevant government and Treasury policies and guidelines.4
Some circumstances may arise in specific projects that are unforeseen by this policy, and an agency may consider that the public interest is better served by varying the application of this policy or published guidelines. If this occurs, the agency should robustly analyse the departure, including any cost implications of such a variation, and seek approvals to make the suggested departure in line with section 1.3 of this policy.
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3 This policy was approved by the Victorian Government to apply to alliance contracting in the government sector. For convenience, the reference to 'agency' is used in this policy to mean any government‐owned entity, including departments. In the alliance contracting context, the 'agency' is commonly referred to as the owner, although it is not appropriate to read this as a reference to the owner participants.
4 This refers to all alliancing specific guidelines published by Treasury, as well as to other government / treasury policies and guidelines that are not specific to any one procurement method - for example, policies and guidelines pertaining to probity, business case development etc.