Where the review is to take the form of a benchmarking process, the key issue for the government party is to obtain comprehensive comparable information on the cost of delivering the relevant services. The private party and its subcontractor are likely to have extensive industry information, but the contract director needs to be in a position to validate and, where appropriate, challenge this information. The key sources of data to inform the contract director include specialist facilities management advisers and any other recent contracts entered into by the government party for similar services (including other Partnerships Victoria projects).
Where an integrated service provision model is in operation on a project, it may be necessary to disaggregate overhead costs and allocate these across individual services, for example by splitting out helpdesk costs for hard services. In light of this, the contract director needs to be particularly careful about how overheads are treated by the private party, and that the right level of overhead is applied to the right cost. This may involve a detailed analysis of the financial model, possibly with the help of modelling specialists and the specialist facilities management adviser.