Integrated Management Model: Cover sheet

Partnership management VfM contributors

Partnership management VfM evidence-base foundation

•  Proposed corrective actions for under-performance are mutually agreed with the private partner and these actions are implemented as agreed

•  Development and continuation of productive relationships with service users, employees and applicable community groups

•  Consortia informs the public partner of emerging risks and performance issues that have the potential to impact upon the achievement of planned VfM outcomes

•  No occurrences of negligence, fraud and / or corruption

•  Public partner employees adhere to all accountabilities and responsibilities under governance, probity and compliance frameworks

•  Disputes are quickly resolved with little to no impact on service delivery obligations and litigation is avoided

•  Progress made against partnership / stakeholder management strategies and plans e.g. assessing whether key messages between the public and private partners or internal project teams and their project control groups have been properly understood and complied with

•  Assessing public partner employees behaviour through staff appraisals to ensure they are effectively discharging their duties in line with project accountabilities and responsibilities e.g. the contract administration manual

•  Outputs comply with relevant industry standards e.g. assessing partnership relations that may relate to people involvement and competence

Partnership management treatments that may increase the likelihood of achieving VfM outcomes

Organisational culture

Employee capability and expertise

Clear and open communication

Personalities / abilities:

•  Personality compatibility testing for key interfacing roles

•  Employee development plans 

Team working:

•  Articulation and reinforcement of project objectives

•  Clearly defined team member roles and responsibilities

•  Effective discharge of duties against agreed accountabilities and governance requirements

•  Integration of employees into teams

•  Clear communication, dispute resolution and information sharing practices

•  Employee commitment to use established business processes 

Motivation / incentives:

•  Threat of / application of abatement

•  Formal recognition of superior private partner performance

•  Employee consultation in design of new work programs

•  Staff KPIs relate to achievement of specific goals

•  Staff reward and recognition programs

Roles and responsibilities:

•  Clearly defining employee accountabilities and responsibilities

•  Identify critical success factors

•  Align employee competencies with job requirements

•  Regularly reviewing work packages with employees to assess project business needs

Subject matter knowledge and applicability:

•  Employee development programs

•  Compliance / remedial action against policies, frameworks, performance systems and procedures

•  Distillation and documentation of key commercial and project learning

•  Succession planning

Shared understanding:

•  Clear communication of organisational beliefs, values and behaviours

•  Adoption of common language

•  Document agreed project decisions for future reference

•  Regular discussion about future organisational direction with private partner

Trust building:

•  Pursuit of common goals

•  Shared understanding

•  Management follow-through on agreed actions

•  Mandate / enforce project-wide adherence to governance, probity and compliance frameworks

•  Showing employees respect

•  Engage employees in decision-making processes

•  Document agreed project decisions for future reference

•  Delegate tasks or responsibilities to employees, as appropriate

•  Highlighting progress / celebrating successes with employees

Relationship continuity

Management commitment and support

Conflict management

Personal and professional influence:

•  Understand the situation from others' point of view

•  Where possible, work towards a preferred outcome (win / win)

•  Communicate effectively with those who may be able to help

Negotiated outcomes:

•  Relaxation of penalty clauses for strategic reasons with retrospective application of abatements for continued under-performance

Acquisition and allocation of additional resources:

•  Prioritisation of funding proposals

•  Financial cutbacks for less important initiatives to counter shortfalls

Under-performance - non-performance / values and beliefs:

•  Operate a "no blame" culture

•  Document agreed project decisions for future reference

•  Understand the situation from others' point of view

•  Take advice, as appropriate, from subject matter experts, operations committees / working groups, legal counsel etc

•  Re-arrange project priorities

•  Re-allocate resources

•  Take disciplinary action / imposing training on under-performing employees

•  Use dispute resolution specialists, if needed

Risk management VfM contributors

Risk management VfM evidence-base foundation

•  Identified risks that may prevent business case or other defined strategic objectives from being met are appropriately managed

•  Service delivery is aligned / re-aligned with business case / project brief objectives, concession deed, service specifications and subsequent contract amendments

•  Service delivery is perceived by users and the wider community to represent VfM

•  Where appropriate, opportunity risk leading to improved VfM outcomes is implemented

•  Confidentiality agreements are put in place e.g. reduce the likelihood that public partner employees will divulge sensitive project information to third parties for personal gain

•  Public partner employee compliance with governance, probity and compliance frameworks

•  No occurrences of negligence, fraud and / or corruption

•  Outputs comply with relevant industry standards e.g. those relating to business continuity planning, public health and safety and fraud control

•  Assessing public partner employees behaviour to ensure they are effectively discharging their duties in line with project accountabilities and responsibilities e.g. against the contract administration manual

•  Transition, operations, environmental, quality improvement, performance shortfall, asset management, end of concession hand-over plans etc are developed and progress against them is monitored

•  Risk registers, business continuity plans, issue logs etc are developed, kept up-to-date and used to mitigate identified risks

•  Service usage (e.g. volume / demand) and failure event reports / exception reports are used for trend reporting to identify emerging risks

•  Benchmarking / competitive market testing is undertaken as scheduled

•  Relevant audit findings / recommendations are implemented

•  Lessons learned logs are used and disseminated as appropriate e.g. to facilitate the broadening of project-specific and wider public sector project knowledge

•  Innovation registers are used e.g. to facilitate ideas that could lead to service user improvements and / or cost efficiencies

Risk management treatments that may increase the likelihood of achieving VfM outcomes

Implementation of transition plan

Managed termination

Change of consortium members / public authority

Project / integration challenges:

•  Update / report on risk registers, business continuity plans, issue logs etc

•  Application of penalties / abatement for under-performance or delay

Service provider failure / voluntary termination:

•  Activation of business continuity plans

•  Communication / issues / stakeholder management planning

•  Enact the termination administrative / change of control processes

•  Final asset inspection

•  Transfer project documentation / knowledge

•  Orientate / up-skill employees

•  Use benchmarking and competitive market testing findings for tendering process

•  Use circumstances that led to termination to probe tenderers' ability and readiness to manage similar situations

Exposure to new risks:

•  Update / report on risk registers, business continuity plans, issue logs etc

•  Distillation and documentation of key commercial and project learning

•  Succession planning

•  Communication / issues / stakeholder management planning

•  Probity checks

Contract variation

End of concession hand-over

Reputation damage

Modification of existing services:

•  Risk assessment

•  Scenario planning

•  Review, testing and update of business continuity plans

•  Review business continuity planning and risk management policies, frameworks and procedures

•  Review identified opportunity risks

•  Performance audits

Re-allocation of risk:

•  Risk assessment

•  Scenario planning

•  Review, testing and update of business continuity plans

•  Review business continuity planning and risk management policies, frameworks and procedures

•  Trend analysis

•  Performance audits

Business continuity planning modification:

•  Review, test and update of plans

•  Review policies, frameworks and procedures

•  Force majeure events and warnings reports

•  Communication / issues / stakeholder management planning

Asset monitoring:

•  Asset management reports

•  Obtain assurance that irregularities / adverse findings are resolved

•  End of concession audits

•  Withhold payment for under-performance / non-performance

Transfer of project documentation / knowledge:

•  Align transition plans with business continuity plans and service provider short-fall plans

•  Agree methodology for transferring project / operational knowledge

•  Distillation and documentation of key commercial and project learning

•  Reinforce knowledge between partners

•  Personnel plans

•  Clear role and responsibility definition

•  Skills appraisals / training plans

Orientation / up-skilling of employees:

•  Clear role and responsibility definition

•  Skills appraisals, training plans, assimilation plans

•  Staff assessment on competency and adherence to governance, probity and compliance frameworks

•  Employee maintenance of project-based 'lessons learnt' logs

•  Succession planning

•  Production of 'how to' documentation for using essential systems and processes

•  Agree methodology for transferring project / operational knowledge

•  Regular updates of hand-over packages / exit interviews

Governance, probity and compliance:

•  Policy, framework and procedural changes clearly communicated to employees

•  Declarations of conflict of interest

•  Disclosure of acceptance of gifts, benefits and / or hospitality

Confidentiality:

•  Develop an organisational (project) culture fostered on trust

•  Agreements signed by all employees that have access to, or are expected to get access to, commercial-in-confidence and cabinet-in-confidence material

•  Incidences of non-compliance escalated to government decision-makers, as appropriate

Un-anticipated / un-intended events:

•  Annual contingency budget

•  Communication / issues / stakeholder management planning

Performance management VfM contributors

Performance management VfM evidence-base foundation

•  Public sector agency / departmental project obligations are delivered within budget and on time

•  Services are delivered in line with business case / project brief objectives, concession deed, service specifications and subsequent contract amendments

•  Agreed changes to service delivery is aligned / re-aligned with business case / project brief objectives, concession deed, service specifications and subsequent contract amendments

•  Consistently high levels of service user and wider community satisfaction is reported

•  Incidences of negligence, fraud and / or corruption are appropriately dealt with

•  Project expenditure remains within prescribed budgetary limits

•  Achievement of VfM outcomes as defined by the business case / project brief objectives, concession deed, service specifications and subsequent contract amendments

•  Incident rates / KPI performance failure rates decline

•  Public partner accountabilities and responsibilities relating to the contract administration manual are satisfactorily discharged

•  Outputs comply with relevant industry standards e.g. those that may relate to process improvement and facilities management

•  Relevant audit findings / recommendations are implemented

•  Implementation of opportunity risk proposals e.g. innovations that lead to improved VfM outcomes

Performance management treatments that may increase the likelihood of achieving VfM outcomes

Performance management systems

Performance monitoring and adjustment

KPI review

Performance management systems improvement:

•  Systems capability reviewed in conjunction with planned modification of KPIs

•  Systems have capability / capacity to measure lagging and leading indicators

•  Systems have capability / capacity to analyse trends

Performance evaluation:

•  Benchmark employee deliverables against job descriptions including outputs and outcomes specified in contract management manuals

•  Adherence to agreed policies, frameworks and procedures

•  Progress made against work plans and technical assessments e.g. asset management plans, issues registers etc

•  Documents agreed project decisions for future reference

•  Performance audits

•  Benchmarking / competitive market testing

•  Monitor the financial strength of consortia

•  Review insurance policies

•  Progress made against the achievement project business case objectives / justifications made for amending a contract

•  Review and implement findings from service user experience surveys

•  Regular discussion about future organisational direction with private partner

Management reporting:

•  Project reporting used as a foundation for interpreting strategy into work plans, measuring strategic objectives and conducting skills appraisals

•  Developing further (or refining existing) control actions

Managing performance shortfalls:

•  Employee skills appraisals

•  Disciplinary action taken against consistently under-performance employees

•  Sub-contracting arrangements

•  Modification of KPIs

•  Contract amendment

Opportunity (risk) implementation:

•  Maintenance of an innovation register

•  Linking innovative ideas to incentive schemes to encourage better performance

Annual KPI review:

•  Agreed between partners prior to commencement of each contract year

•  Alterations are relevant, measurable, repeatable and achievable

•  Rationale for modification fully documented

Ongoing KPI review:

•  As above (albeit with more regular review)

Availability and integrity of performance data and metrics

Penalties and abatements

Availability of performance data and metrics:

•  Abatement for failure to provide data

•  Decisions not to abate are properly justified and fully documented

•  Continued non-compliance results in contract termination (as appropriate)

Integrity of performance data and metrics:

•  Performance audits

•  Suspected wrong-doing, negligence, fraud and / or corruption escalated timely to an appropriate decision-maker

•  Investigation of all credible accusations

•  Confirmed instances dealt with through disciplinary / legal action, the issue of warning / penalty notices and / or abatement

•  In the most serious of incidents, termination of contract may be warranted

Applying penalties and abatements:

•  Enforcement decisions are closely aligned with relevant contractual clauses

•  Consistent application of penalties / abatements for under-performance (unless there is a properly justified case for not doing so)

•  Cure plans and default scenarios, as appropriate

Incentive revisions:

•  Failure of to follow through on assurances lead to retrospective application of abatements

•  Off-setting under-performing services with other services rendered

•  Rationale for each instance of non-abatement fully documented to protect against corporate memory loss

•  Rationale for each instance of non-abatement fully documented to protect against departmental / external agency criticism