Christchurch rebuild, New Zealand: alliancing with a difference

The alliance contract is a flexible form of partnering between organisations, and, to date, alliances for the delivery of infrastructure projects in the construction industry have typically been a partnership between one owner participant and one or more non-owner participants, including a design consultancy. The Christchurch infrastructure rebuild team in New Zealand, set up to deliver the reconstruction of the earthquake-damaged infrastructure, is a multi-client, multi-contractor programme alliance with professional services procured from consultancies amalgamated into four teams that are not participants in the alliance model. This multi-client, multi-contractor alliance is different from more commonly used ‘classes’ of alliances in the procurement of design services. In particular, the introduction of a delivery performance score provides price tension between the non-owner participants and ensures value for money for the client organisations, while the gain/pain incentive ensures both collaboration across the delivery teams and independent target outturn cost development with no direct price influence from the delivery teams.