What are the best sources of this information?

The best sources of information are commonly:

•  people, such as:

-  the project director;

-  members of the procurement team;

-  the procurement team's advisers (including legal, commercial, technical and, where applicable, operational);

-  the government operator (in 'availability' Partnerships Victoria projects);

-  the senior responsible owner;

-  end users;

-  independent assessors/reviewers;

-  Partnerships Victoria; and

-  fellow contract manager practitioners. 

•  documentation, such as: 

-  the project deed (and associated project contracts) 

(Appendix A lists typical project contracts in a Partnerships Victoria project), including: 

(a)  service KPIs and payment mechanism;

(b)  plans required to be submitted by the private party under the project deed (some at financial close and others by commercial acceptance); and

(c)  annotated comments by the procurement team and contract management team;

-  internal reports;

-  minutes/actions from government steering committee and working groups and from meetings with the private party;

-  documents relating to approvals obtained during earlier stages of the project; 

-  the risk matrix developed to allocate project risk under the project deed (and associated project contracts);

-  the public sector comparator for the project (for the allocation of risk and quantification of retained risk);

-  the public interest test (as documented in accordance with the Partnerships Victoria Requirements); and

-  input from the project control group, management committee or similar forum relevant to the project.

While much of this documentation will be available at financial close, the further the project deed extends into the service delivery phase, the more important information generated during the contract period becomes to effectively manage the project.