3. This guidance is intended for the acquisition community requiring or involved in Through Life Investment Assurance (hereafter referred to as "assurance"3) of defence Private Finance Initiative (PFI) and Public Private Partnership4 (PPP) projects and programmes in support of UK military capability and operations. It should be read in conjunction with other MOD guidance on assurance5. This guidance note does not relate to either scrutiny or due diligence of PFI/PPP projects/programmes.
4. This guidance note is published as interim guidance only pending more coherent MOD wide policy and guidance on assurance. It will be superseded once such policy and guidance is available.
5. It has been developed to advise on the process by which the MOD PFU, acquisition teams and functional lead assurors6, will ascertain the maturity status of a PFI/PPP project/programme through life, and in particular in the run up to critical project/programme milestones. The process will enable MOD PFU, acquisition teams and functional lead assurors, to focus on the key areas to be addressed to ensure a successful acquisition and subsequently delivery of defence capability. For areas assessed as deficient, remedial actions will be identified by the MOD PFU Project Support officer (PSO) to help move the project/programme maturity forward.
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3 It should be noted that assurance is a different activity to either commercial scrutiny or due diligence which is carried out by the Commercial Assurance & Due Diligence Team (CADD) team within the Commercial Assurance & Governance unit (of which the MoD PFU is also part).
4 PPP as defined by HM Treasury in Infrastructure Procurement delivering long-term value dated March 2008.
5 E.g. DE&S Through Life Capability Assurance guidance available on the Defence Intranet as described in DE&S Standing Instruction 21.
6 Functional lead assurors are those single points of contact, identified by Top Level Budget holders, who have the delegated responsibility for providing assurance of projects by functional area, e.g. commercial, finance, technical.