Next Generation Broadband for Wales (NGBW)

This PPP project targeted the over 50% of premises in Wales for which there was no planned commercial roll out of broadband. It therefore supplemented commercial investment already made or planned by the private sector. The scheme was run under a competitive dialogue selection process with the aim of identifying the private partner offering the best value for money solution for a set Government grant.

The Portland team worked closely with the Welsh Government IT Procurement team providing financial advice including:

• pre-bidding phase soft market testing and participation in open day
• developing evaluation criteria and methodology
• carrying out evaluations of the financial submissions
• providing commercial input into the project documentation, including payment and clawback mechanism
• assisting with all financial aspects of the competitive dialogue process, including negotiations with preferred bidder and support for internal report and approval procedures

Following a comprehensive competitive process, BT was awarded the NGBW project. The contract included clawback provision if the roll-out costs were lower than expected or take-up higher than planned. Since then, the Welsh Government has been able to claw back £70m in funding which they intend to invest in improving digital connectivity further (the “Extending High Speed Broadband” project)