There is potential for the conceptual IMM to be aligned with any relevant existing operating policies, procedures and associated documentation e.g. national PPP policy and guidelines issued by Infrastructure Australia; by Australian state jurisdictions such as Victoria (Partnerships Victoria) (also extending to Gateway Reviews and adherence to the Department of Treasury and Finance's Asset Management Framework, for example) and New South Wales (Working With Government) (see Chapters 3 and 4); contract management manuals (see Chapter 5 for examples); as well as operating procedures that have been developed in-house to meet specific requirements of individual PPPs (including documentation that could be used to develop VfM 'evidence-bases', outlined in Chapter 6). It should thus prove to be a useful tool for developing operational improvement plans including maximising employee learning opportunities, and lead to improved VfM outcomes for public partners.
The IMM has been designed to provide public partner decision-makers with a framework against which partnership, risk and performance management challenges can be addressed, and provides a reasonable level of detail to aid deeper contemplation of the issues. Sound corporate and managerial judgement are likely to be influential factors in the successful application of the model, as will be the degree of conceptual and practical value placed on the IMM by project directors and / or other senior public decision-makers. Therefore their understanding of, and endorsement of the model, as well as the ease of its assimilation will be crucial. Users' ability to adapt the IMM to meet the specific requirements of each PPP operating perspective may also be pivotal.
Other factors that could prove to be critical to the successful implementation of the IMM relate to expectation management i.e. a belief that the model should offer satisfactory results for every possible outcome. The IMM has been developed as a generic governance framework - not as a 'one size fits all' solution for public partner PPP oversight. Although the IMM covers a wide range of public partner issues and more detailed sub-issues, there may be important issues that have not been identified or integrated using literature review findings. It is anticipated that some issues may be identified during interview and focus group testing (see Chapter 2 for research methodology, and Chapters 8 and 9 for interview and focus group findings and analysis). Also, the extent to which the model is effectively socialised into project environments by senior decision-makers could be key for realising and maximising the potential benefits of the IMM. Moreover, wider industry drivers such as changing government / departmental / statutory authority objectives or a global financial crisis could impact upon operations (altering the role / obligations of the private partner, public partner, or both) or even lead to the modification of what constitutes a VfM outcome.