There may be occasions when public partner decision-makers decide not to abate their private partner for service delivery under-performance. Penalties, for example, could be deferred to improve working relationships between the partners (i.e. by giving consortia more time to address issues), or by off-setting under-performing services with other services rendered. Under appropriate circumstances, the private partner could be given sufficient time to address under-performance (e.g. two months depending on the nature of the shortfall). Such situations should be closely monitored by the public partner with findings regularly reported to the project director (e.g. monthly). Failure of the private partner to follow through on assurances within agreed timeframes typically mean that abatement should be applied retrospectively. Furthermore, the rationale leading to each instance of non-abatement should be fully documented to protect against corporate memory loss in case of unexpected staffing changes and to provide justification to government agencies e.g. Auditors-General as to why these decisions were taken.