Implications for design and construct contractors operating in a public private partnership environment: an Australian perspective

The term Design and Construct (D&C) is a well-established description of a procurement method in which the roles and responsibilities of the various stakeholders are clearly defined. The advent of Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) brings a new opportunity for design and construct contractors with the concomitant challenge of operating as a member of a private sector consortium with numerous stakeholders. This research investigated the implications for design and construct contractors bidding for social (as opposed to economic) PPP projects. The conventional wisdom has been to assume that there is little difference between bidding for a traditional design and construct contract as compared to submitting a design and construct bid as part of a total PPP bid, however the results of the study indicated that there were subtle, and in some instances, significant differences. The first phase of the research dealt with the direct costs of bidding. This paper describes Phase One of the research project together with a proposed research methodology for Phase Two of the research which, will examine not only direct bidding costs but also the indirect costs to the design and construct contractor during the bidding and the operational phase of the construction project.