Where the government approves a recommendation for an alliance procurement strategy, the alliance will be established to deliver the capital assets component of the approved Business Case. In some cases, an alliance will also be established to provide services associated with the operations and maintenance of those capital assets. The alliance will broadly consist of:
• Owner Participants; and
• Non-Owner Participants (NOPs).
The alliance must deliver the project within the parameters set out in the approved Business Case. It is important to understand the distinction between the Owner and the Owner Participants. The two are not interchangeable. The Owner (which can be a Minister, the departmental head, the agency's Board etc) may delegate certain limited responsibilities to nominated Owner Participants. However, the Owner cannot delegate its accountability to the government for delivering the approved Business Case's objectives. These objectives include both the capital project component and the service benefits to be delivered to the community in the (normally) longer term4. To this end, it is important that the owner defines these objectives clearly and transparently.
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4 For the avoidance of doubt, the 'service benefits' referred to here are the broader social and policy-driven objectives that attract public funding for an infrastructure project (e.g., travel time savings or lower road accident rates). In this context, they do not refer to the operation and maintenance services of the capital assets.