This Chapter explores the presence of partnership, risk and performance management issues (that were identified in Chapters 3 and 4) in the context of real PPPs:
- Spencer Street (Southern Cross) Station Re-development;
- EastLink;
- New Royal Children's Hospital Project;
- CityLink;
- New Schools Privately Financed Project; and
- Cross City Tunnel.
The six case studies all relate to Australian PPP experiences. They have been selected due to the amount and range of publically available information on these projects including information that impacts directly on the operating phase. Public information about specific PPP projects is usually scarce; is rarely comprehensively objective; and seldom covers the operational phase. Four cases are based in Victoria and the remaining two in New South Wales. For each case study project, the extant evidence is examined to explore the presence and nature of partnership, risk and performance management issues identified in the preceding literature review; and to reveal any additional concerns associated with these three management disciplines. Relevant generic issues arising from each case study is presented which comprise examples from both Social and Economic infrastructure projects.
A new sub-issue is identified that is applicable to, or has the potential to affect each of these case study projects: change to public partner's agency authority. To provide context for this sub-issue, PPPs in Australia are established under state government law (as distinct from Australian Commonwealth or Federal law). Typically for Economic Infrastructure projects, statutory authorities are established to enforce legislation in order to achieve government objectives. This includes managing PPP contracts on behalf of the state. Although largely dependent upon the structures and specific arrangements of each PPP, once projects move from procurement and delivery to operations, statutory authorities can be re-structured to incorporate other projects or functions under a single governance framework (e.g. to expand scope of responsibility, create efficiencies of scale, etc). This differs from most Social Infrastructure projects which are aligned with the government agency (the client) considered to have the greatest level of expertise in providing management oversight throughout the asset's lifecycle e.g. the Victorian Department of Health for the new Royal Children's Hospital Project and the New South Wales Department of Education and Training for the New Schools Privately Financed Project.
With respect to the case study projects presented in this Chapter, the Spencer Street (Southern Cross) Station Re-development (a Social Infrastructure project) is an exception. The Southern Cross Station Authority was set up in 2000 to represent the Victorian State Government (Southern Cross Station Authority 2008: p.10) and was wound up in 2009, after the project had successfully transitioned into the operational phase (Department of Transport 2009: p.133). At that time, the Authority's responsibilities were transferred to the Department of Transport, V/Line and MetLink with the assets and liabilities of the Authority being assigned to the Department with the latter's commitments extending to 30 June 2036 (Department of Transport 2009: p.114). The responsibilities of the other statutory authorities (for the Economic Infrastructure projects) were also transferred after operations commenced (although this did not occur with regard to the Sydney Cross City Tunnel's Roads and Traffic Authority until a much later time (it was merged with New South Wales Maritime at the end of 2011) and the functions of the CityLink's Director, Melbourne City Link, were transferred to VicRoads in 2004, for example, due to legislative changes (Victorian Auditor-General 2004: p.62)).
All this serves to counter any notion that the parties and concession periods are fixed in PPPs. Consortia members comprising the private partner may change; concession periods may be re-negotiated; and the responsibility for governance may be re-assigned within government.