Please join us in the State Capitol, Room 444 from 9:00-10:00 a.m. on December 2 for an informative presentation by Michael Gerrard, Deputy Chief Executive, of Partnerships UK (PUK), a British non-profit distributing body established in 2000 by Her Majesty's Treasury.

Our host is Ryan Orr, Executive Director of the Collaboratory for Research on Global Projects at Stanford University.

9:00-10:00 a.m. -- Special briefing for organized labor, both public and private sector. The Assembly Member organized this briefing specifically to provide an opportunity to discuss the concerns that were raised by labor and how they were addressed in the UK's use of alternative financing and procurement approaches to build infrastructure.

10:30-12:00 p.m.-- Briefing for legislators, key decision makers at state agencies, and other interested parties. Labor is also invited to attend this briefing as well.

Why This Briefing? The worldwide economic crisis of the past two months presents extreme challenges for local agencies trying to fund critical basic services -- much less to build the schools, libraries, courthouses, hospitals, roads, bridges, ports, and other infrastructure urgently needed by California's growing population. In these difficult economic times, we can all benefit from hearing how others dealt with similar challenges, during similarly tough fiscal times.

What is Partnerships UK? The mission of PUK is to advise agencies on best practices when contracting with private companies to support the procurement of infrastructure and other public services. The PUK program now involves almost 900 projects with a capital value of around $100 billion. PUK grew out efforts by British Prime Minister Tony Blair's Labour government to stimulate economic growth during a severe recession in the early 1990's. After various starts and stops, the Labour Government established a Treasury Taskforce in 1997 to reinvigorate the private finance initiative, which was the precursor to the formation of PUK. The formation was a recognition of the increasingly complex way that the public sector was engaging with the private sector, and the need to supplement and enhance the public sector skills base.

Our Speaker, Mr. Michael Gerrard: Mr. Michael Gerrard is well qualified to tell us the story of the British experience with alternative financing and procurement methods of building infrastructure and procuring public services. He joined Partnerships UK (PUK) at its formation in 2000 as Head of Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) and became Deputy CEO in 2002. He has 30 years of experience in developing and implementing capital projects in the private sector and, since 1998, within the UK public sector. PUK's projects are spread across the infrastructure, utilities and IT sectors and include several undertaken as joint ventures between the public and private sectors.

External audits of the UK's program show that it has reduced the costs of infrastructure and public service procurement in the UK by up to approximately 17% over the project lifecycle, which represents a substantial direct material benefit to society.

Research shows that the success of the PUK model lies in creating multiple alternative delivery formats for infrastructure and public services, and in creating mechanisms to assess the relative costs and benefits of various delivery formats (including conventional delivery). The goal is to identify the delivery model that achieves the greatest value for the taxpayer dollar.

Mr. Gerrard will make a brief presentation describing the PUK program, followed by a question and answer period.

Posted by rjorr at December 2, 2008 5:52 PM