Seán Fleming (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)
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Question 406: To ask the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government the costs paid by local authorities prior to design build and operate schemes being introduced for waste water treatment plants throughout the country and the costs now being paid by local authorities to private contractors under the DBO schemes; if he will publish the public sector cost comparator in relation to these plans in order that there can be public transparency and the public know they are achieving value for money results for the Irish taxpayer; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [10082/09]

John Gormley (Dublin South East, Green Party)
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Costs associated with the operation and maintenance of water services treatment plants have been increasing in recent years, reflecting both the increased capital investment in the sector over the past decade or so and the need to meet increased water quality standards. Details of income and expenditure by each Water Services Authority in respect of water services may be obtained from Local Authorities' Financial Outturns which are published on my Department's website.

Where local authorities propose to provide water services treatment plants by way of Public Private Partnership procurement — typically by way of a Design, Build and Operate (DBO) contract — they are required to prepare a Public Sector Benchmark (PSB) Report. The PSB consists of a comprehensive, detailed risk adjusted costing of the project elements over the whole life of the project on the basis of conventional procurement and enables a comparison to be made on a like for like basis between traditional and PPP procurement. PPP tenders are then evaluated by reference to the PSB to determine whether the PPP approach will deliver better value for money compared to traditional procurement. In all PSB reports to date, the PPP route has been shown to provide better value for money than conventional procurement, of up to 15%-20 % in the case of capital costs and 10-15% in the case of operating costs, depending on scale.

PSB Reports in individual cases can be obtained from the relevant procurement authorities once the tenders have been awarded.