# A BIM-Based Value for Money Assessment in Public-Private Partnership: An Overall Review
## Overview of Value for Money Assessment
### VfM Assessment Application Status  
A PPP contract usually runs 30 to 50 years or more, which is longer than traditional procurement arrangements, and it can generate more project uncertainties within the lifecycle. VfM is used to determine whether a project is suitable for the PPP model and, in fact, could be defined as an entire lifecycle assessment [22]. Using data from the World Bank Group and Public-Private Infrastructure Advisory Facility (PPIAF), Table 3 shows the various VfM approaches commonly used in different regions. However, aspects of the practical operation were insufficiently considered [23]. Countries have begun to set up a specific methodology that concerns VfM but lacks supporting information from engineering aspects concerning implementation. \begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c c} \hline \hline
**Country** & **VfM Application Status** & **PPP Legal Framework** & **VfM Toolkit** \\ \hline Turkey & No specific methodology developed & No & No \\ \hline China & Specific methodology developed & Guidelines for the Operation of Public-Private Partnership (trial) & Government and social capital cooperation project value for money assessment guidelines \\ \hline Indonesia & No specific methodology developed & The Presidential Regulation No. 38 of 2015; The Ministry of National Development Planning/National Development Planning Agency (BAPPENAS) & No \\  & No specific methodology developed & Planning Agency (BAPPENAS) & No \\  & & Regulation No. 4 of 2015; The Government Goods and Services Procurement Policy (LKPP) & \\  & & Regulation No. 19 of 2015 & \\ \hline Brazil & No specific methodology developed & The General Law for Public-Private Partnership in Roads and Highways (P3 Toolkit, 2013 \\ \hline India & Specific methodology developed & General Financial Rules; Model RFP (Requester for quote) and RFP (Requester for proposal); Model concession agreements; & PPP Structuring Toolkit \\ \hline \hline \end{tabular}
\end{table} 
Table 3: Value for money (VfM) application status in major PPP countries [23]. To stress the application situation, this paper also sourced the published VfM reports from the Ministry of Finance of China. The Chinese government has been embarking on an ambitious programme of investments on large urban municipal engineering projects. Until April 2018, the Ministry of Finance of China already published four batches of demonstration projects, with the total number 1093. Based on the VfM performance in the engineering project domain (e.g., transportation, urban housing, education, culture, nursing, and municipal engineering), using the PPP project library of the China Public-Private Partnerships Centre, the VfM reports of each project were collected and analysed. As shown in Figure 3, a considerable number of projects did not provide an appropriate quantitative assessment. This indicates that the VfM, which is regarded as essential, still lacks completeness with respect to implementation. As for the project with the VfM report document, the author also investigated the report in detail and determined that the data processing was inaccurate. The presentation of the qualitative assessment, its content, and how managers scored the related factors were also problematic in most PPP projects. More detailed explanations and measurement approaches are required to enhance the level of the quantitative performance. The qualitative process was conducted in an excessively simple form, while the quantitative method was frequently abrogated or postponed due to feasibility issues [24]. To emphasise the content of the VfM, the following section contains both qualitative and quantitative features sourced mainly from VfM guidance in the UK, the USA, and China. The following sections introduce the BIM concept (Section 4) and how BIM-based information exchange and management could be absorbed into the VfM structure.