The National PPP guidelines: commercial principles for social infrastructure9 states that 'the private party must develop the basic design proposed in its bid (and set out in the project agreement) in accordance with an agreed consultative process and submit all final design documentation (and any amendments) to the government party for comment.'
The project director must be familiar with the design development process set out in the project deed, and ensure that the procurement team and stakeholders are providing timely, useful and constructive comments about the design in accordance with the contractual process. The other challenge for the project director is to avoid having the procurement team and stakeholders stepping into or intervening in the private party's design role and thereby taking back risk. The general rule is that the procurement team and stakeholders can comment, identify and highlight any concerns or potential issues with the proposed design, but should not propose solutions, as this is the private party's responsibility.
As there is significant workload for the project director and government party in the design renew and user group process, the procurement team will often use proprietary workflow management software to manage this activity in a timely way.
It is important for the government party to adequately plan for and resource the design renew process, because this process is often the final opportunity to refine requirements regarding the functional design of the facilities and how they will be built.
In conjunction with the coordination role played by the procurement team, the project director plays an important role in the design process, in ensuring that the design documentation reflects what was bid by the private party and what is set out in the project deed. The project director should guard against pressure from the private party to depart from the project deed when it comes to design requirements. Significant departures from those documents can have probity and value for money implications for the State. Material departures are effectively contract variations, and should only be accepted with adequate value for money justification, proper documentation and authorised approval of the variation (additional information is provided in section 14.4).
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9 National PPP guidelines, refer to: Volume 3: Commercial principles for social infrastructure, Chapter 37 (page 23).