6.53 Comparison of Public Private Partnerships (PPP) options with a comparable public sector option is required. A suitable public sector option should be created to provide a benchmark for comparison of direct public provision and partnership options, costs and value on a level playing field. This requires the comparable public sector option to be based on the same provision of services in terms of quantity and quality and provide the same level and length of asset maintenance as the partnership option. It is therefore necessary for adjustments to be made for tax (see Annex 4).
6.54 A choice involving PPP options should not be reduced to a binary choice between public and private. Having a partnership option and public sector comparator on the short-list does not rule out other options. There may be more than one partnership option and where this is the case each one requires its own public sector comparator. There may also be other directly provided public sector options not comparable to the PPP options (e.g. different in terms of scope or benefits offered) in addition to the public sector comparator.
6.55 Payments of tax on foreign procurements are included in market prices in the social value calculations, in the same way as they are for UK purchases. Manufacturing and supply chains are generally global in nature, meaning all procurements on average are likely to have elements of foreign origin, manufacture and taxation applied to their production. It would not be proportionate, or likely to add value to the decision process, to attempt an analysis of each procurement's degree of embedded foreign taxation and then to make an adjustment.
6.56 The existence of a UK supply chain or the location of companies involved in maintenance and repair may be important for policy or wider social objectives. When this is the case this should be considered at the long-list stage and in selection of the short-list. Such priorities should be used when developing the economic dimension of a business case, and should feed through into the specification of the procurement process in the commercial dimension.
6.57 If competition effects resulting from a proposal are deemed likely during consideration at the long-listing stage (Chapter 4), further in-depth assessment of these impacts should be undertaken and incorporated into any Social CBA or Social CEA. Guidance on quantifying competition effects can be found at the CMA webpages.