The City of Albury is a Local Government Area (LGA) in the Murray region of New South Wales, co-located on the border with the Victorian City of Wodonga.
The Albury City Council (Council) provides local government services, including waste management and recycling, drinking water supply and wastewater treatment, to over 50,000 people and businesses in the City of Albury.
The Albury Sewage Treatment Plant Project was a major works project undertaken by Council, in conjunction with the then NSW Department of Public Works and Services, to upgrade existing wastewater treatment facilities for the City of Albury.
The approach to market taken for this project was to engage with the private sector to establish an Infrastructure Partnership arrangement to procure the treatment plant.
This could be either, a finance & Build, Own, Operate and Transfer (BOOT) contract, or a finance & Build, Transfer, Operate and maintain (BTO) contract. Proponent proposals were assessed for the relative benefit to Council, when compared with a “benchmark project” developed to reflect the usual way Council would procure this type of plant.
We provided advice to Council regarding the tender processes employed to select a suitable contractor for this work. This included attendance at a preliminary meeting with potential proponents facilitated by Public Works and Services and the Environment Management Industry Association of Australia (EMIAA).
We reviewed all relevant process documentation including tender documents, evaluation reports, communications and recommendations for all stages. We checked that every participant in evaluation or assessment processes signed a Confidentiality Agreement and Conflict of Interest Declaration.
We attended and monitored all supplier briefings, site, meetings, interactive workshops, tender evaluation meetings, and supplier interviews.
Probity Reports were prepared at key milestones of the procurement processes.
The stage one project value was estimated to be about $10 million, and the engagement extended from June 1995 to December 1995.
Completion of this work concluded our first major professional engagement for probity advisory services.
