Brisbane Metro Q&A session with Cr Adrian Schrinner, Acting Mayor and Chair of Public and Active Transport Committee and Steve Hammer, Project Director video transcript

Read the transcript of the Q&A session with Cr Adrian Schrinner, Acting Mayor and Chair of Public and Active Transport Committee and Steve Hammer, Project Director.

Audience member:

First of all, I would like to congratulate Council on bringing this project to market and building on what’s been over a decade of consistency and delivery. As a client, there’s no sovereign risk or worry that contractors have about Council when it comes to certainty in projects so well done on that.

Again, I would like to congratulate Council on consulting with industry and continuing to and adopting a Collaborative Partnership model for the main project.

I’ve got two questions that relate to the Collaborative Partnership project. The first is the mention of the tender reimbursement fees, Council may not have not decided on that yet, but having looked at the design for this job it strikes me that the complexity involved from an engineering perspective alone would attract something of a tender cost of around at least one per cent of the contract value.

So, it is significant funds that the contracting partners will be asked to invest in participating in this at time when the industry is very lean and also competing for other projects and other jurisdictions, particularly New South Wales and Victoria.

So just keen to know Council’s thoughts on that and obviously willing to further consult and related to that is whether you’re taking forward two contractors into the final competitive phase. As obviously more than two, from a desirability point of view, difficult for industry.

The second question is a simpler one, it’s just around the declaration of cost and non-cost at the tender process and whether Council can give some declaration of the weightings for the non-cost criteria and the cost criteria because it just allows us as proponents when we’re bidding these jobs to hone our skills and our energy to what is really important and what constitutes value for Council. Hopefully those are fairly clear questions. Thank you.

Steve Hammer:

Thank you very much for your questions Peter. In response to the first question with regards to tender reimbursement, Council’s indicating in the Expression of Interest documents to what level that reimbursement will be.

There will be reimbursement for the shortlisted parties who are participating in the ECI phase and then for the unsuccessful party in that process.

In terms of the value of that reimbursement, Council’s considering reimbursement of up to the level of $3 million for the bid reimbursement but that will all be detailed in the tender documents.

In terms of the second part to your first question which was the number of tenderers, Council is yet to decide on what level of short-listing will progress into the ECI phase, whether that’s two or three, we’re yet to make that decision. And in part that will dependent a little of the level of responses from the EOI and to the strength of those submissions that we receive.

In terms of your second question – weightings, Council, through its process, will likely communicate to what level our evaluation criteria weightings will be.

So, certainly for the Expression of Interest process, we’ve got an indication as to what those weightings are and then as we progress through the process we’ll be looking to see how we communicate those weightings.

I appreciate, in the type of contract that we’ve got, there are many aspects of this project that we’ll be looking for strengths from our participants including price and non-price criteria.

As the Acting Mayor pointed out, aspects such as the urban realm/urban design aspects on some of the larger infrastructure components in particular around the new Cultural Centre station are very important and therefore how the teams best present themselves and how we work through that in the ECI phase is clearly an aspect that will come up in a lot of the interactive tender process.

Scott Stewart:

Thank you – next question.

Audience member:

Hi gentlemen, I’m just wondering If we are going for the major cultural package, does that preclude you from going for the other station packages given that the Collaborative Partnership will be sorting the tender for those?

Steve Hammer:

Thanks Julie for your question.

It will not preclude you, the short-listed parties, from submitting an Expression of Interest process whilst being in a process for the Collaborative Partnership.

Because the short-listing process, as you saw on the program, the tender phase for those construct only packages will be once we’ve selected a successful party and therefore the unsuccessful party in that process, should they have submitted an EOI, it will be important for them to go through that process and demonstrate their abilities to deliver the construct only packages.

Therefore, should they be short-listed, which would be highly likely, given the short-listing for a D&C package, it would therefore have the ability to participate in those construct only packages.

Scott Stewart:

Any more questions? This is a good, fast opportunity to get quick answers.

Audience member:

Thank you for your presentation. My question would be will Council select separately the designer and the contractor to form the Collaborative Partnership or is your expectation that consortiums consisting of designers and contractors will put in a submission for the EOI?

Steve Hammer:

Thank you again for the question. Our Expression of Interest documents will be seeking teams of designers and contractors submitting proposals of Expressions of Interest for the short-listing process.

Scott Stewart:

One more at the front here.

Audience member:

I was wondering if you could give a little bit more clarity on that main contracting procurement process. I see we’ve got an Expression of Interest that will be out today and closes shortly and obviously there’s an ECI process later on.

You’ve got a process in the middle called RFP. Could you just explain what that RFP process is for us please?

Steve Hammer:

Thanks Tony. So it’s a slight variant on what we would typically see through the process. So, as set out we’ve got an Expression of Interest process which will look to the teams put forward and their capabilities to deliver the type of work that we’re seeking to deliver.

The second stage is a short-listed suite of respondents to the EOI and we’ll look to further detail their team’s capabilities in delivering the works.

Probably most importantly, in addition to further interaction with Council with regards to their teams and their abilities to work in a Collaborative Partnership and their demonstrated experience, is the competitive element to that is the submission of the margin part which is the overhead and profit margin component.

So there is a first stage competitive element to the short-listed parties and then upon assessment of those, we’ll further short-list for the RFP stage or the ECI stage which will be a much more intensive collaborative element.

And it’s those short-listed parties where the significant expenditure and effort is required through the tender process of which the bid reimbursement applies to the later stage of those proponents.

Scott Stewart:

More questions – yes one more.

Audience member:

Given that the majority of the project will be delivered as a Collaborative Partnership, although there are D&C and construct only components, has Council or the project team decided what they are going to do in terms of contract administration or verification yet?

Steve Hammer:

So we’re still working through those aspects although under the Collaborative Partnership we will follow a similar process to what I believe we in industry have experienced in the alliance type phase so that we’ll have a highly integrated project team of Council officers along with the market participants, so the contractor and designer, in a co-located fashion.

And then Council will also likely have an independent verifier, participating on behalf of Council, to verify the works undertaken by the Collaborative Partnership.

And then, separate to that, we have other direct elements for the design and construct component for the depot and also then the fleet component as well which is under the design and build.

So the independent verifier function for the Collaborative Partnership, given it’s got a component of construct only, D&C and also management of the systems element, will have quite an intensive independent verification process to that and then separately it will be Council’s other activities whereby its delivering more directly with the market.

Scott Stewart:

More questions – we’re on a good roll here. Yes, one more. Two more. We’ll start at the back if that’s okay.

Audience member:

I noticed that the delivery of the depot package is concurrent with the vehicle selection process. So if there is an impact, hypothetically, with the propulsion system and the facilities required on the depot how would that be managed?

Steve Hammer:

Thanks for the question. I guess this goes a little way back to in the first phase of the vehicle procurement firstly and our Registration of Interest and more importantly our Expressions of Interest.

So, as the Acting Mayor pointed out, we’re seeking innovative responses from the supply market with respect to the vehicle across a number of aspects and I guess the largest variable to that would be the powertrain side of that.

Therefore, that process through then specifying our technical specs for that design and build package will then allow us to progress with a level of certainty to procure the pilot vehicle.

And it’s with the execution of that pilot vehicle that we will then be starting to overlap with our design and construct and effectively our design for the depot.

So we’ll look to mitigate that risk and remove that risk because clearly we don’t want to build a depot that doesn’t suit the vehicle.

So ensuring that we connect those two packages together to ensure we de-risk the supply of the depot is acknowledged. Thank you for that question.

Scott Stewart:

Thank you. I think we had another one toward the front.

Audience member:

Just some clarity around how you’re going to procure, and more importantly contract, the systems and suburban infrastructure contracts. Is that direct to BCC or is that going to be through the collaborative framework and if it is that way, then is BCC doing the EOI process and identifying the proponent and then sort of novating them in to the Collaborative Partnership?

Steve Hammer:

So currently Council is working through the specifications required for the suburban elements which are relatively more straight forward but more importantly the systems elements.

So where, as you would note, in the draft Design Report and the arrangements Council is looking to put in place as part of the project – the systems component, whilst relatively small, is quite integrated within the infrastructure component.

So we’re currently developing up those specs and therefore the Expressions of Interest process to gain market response for those assessed and short-listed parties to then be transferred into a procurement process undertaken on behalf of Council by the Collaborative Partnership.

So in terms of the commercial aspects of whether they’re novated in, I think we haven’t yet fully developed the Collaborative Partnership deed, although getting quite close.

And really I think the commercial complexities as to whether or not that’s a party to the Collaborative Partnership or a direct contract with Council, we are yet to resolve but will be issued as part of the RFT for the ECI phase.

Scott Stewart:

Any more questions? Yes – one towards the back.

Audience member:

Given the concurrent tendering with the Cross River Rail, how will Council assess capability of the consortium teams at the same time that those same consortium teams might be bidding for the Cross River Rail components?

Steve Hammer:

Thanks for the question. In the evaluation of our procurement program we’re highly cognisant of the procurement program for Cross River Rail and therefore I think in evaluating the Collaborative Partnership, clearly given that it is a partnership between Council and the contractor and designer, the personnel and the capability of those organisations to put forward a team that will work in a collaborative nature with Council, it will be high on the assessment criteria.

So therefore, notwithstanding that Cross River Rail has a process underway for their two major packages, and there is a timing overlap of which market proponents may well be participating in both but we’ll be seeking from those proponents that they have the capacity and capability to participate in the Collaborative Partnership in either scenario.

Clearly the scenario whereby they’re selected as a successful party for Cross River Rail will have a bearing on their ability to deliver for the Brisbane Metro but we’ll leave that to the market to provide to us that assurance that they can deliver those works. 

I think it’s important to note that Council and the Cross River Rail Delivery Authority are in close engagement with regards to the scale of two major projects.

Their project is very large in scale in a level that we have seen previously in the toll road space in terms of the two major packages and therefore we are working with them to ensure that those two programs of work are coordinated in a strong fashion.