Infrastructure Australia engaged KPMG to help find practical solutions to the most significant barriers to competition and efficiency in the procurement of PPPs.

This review was in response to criticism that bid costs in Australia are excessive, it takes too long to award contracts, and that new local and overseas entrants face barriers to entering the Australian PPP market.

Key points

The KPMG review found that:

• Bid costs in Australia are, on average, around 25–45% higher than in Canada for similarly sized projects, but significantly lower than in the United Kingdom.
• The time to procure a PPP contract in Australia is 17 months on average, compared with 16 months in Canada and 34 months in the UK.
• The biggest barrier to new entrants to the PPP market is the relatively small number of PPP projects in Australia in comparison with Canada and the UK.

The review included some recommendations on how the procurement process could be improved. The National PPP Working Group has outlined a range of actions in their response below.