The Netherlands last week closed its first defence PPP - going in at the deep end with the €270 million (US$450m) DBFOM of the armed forces' largest barracks facility.

For all that, it appears to have gone through remarkably smoothly - reaching financial close well within the envisaged time period, which ran all the way to October.

Bart Meesters, the Allen & Overy partner advising the sponsors, agreed it was a "straightforward deal" - adding that that fact bodes well for the future use of PPP by the Dutch defence ministry.

Ed Vissers, MoD project leader for Kromhout, said that as a result of the project's success - which saved the ministry more money even than it had hoped - "PPP is now one of our 'official' possibilities in matters of sourcing."

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The other members of the Komfort consortium were ISS Facility Services as FM provider, Meyer & Van Schooten Architects as architect and Karres en Brands as landscape architect.

As with other defence PPPs in the UK and France, the issue exists of the transfer of staff from the MoD to the FM provider. Bart Meesters, legal adviser to the sponsor, says: "the ministry of defence will still have to negotiate with the unions about that, but it is not anticipated that it will cause any insurmountable problems.

"The MoD will take the risk of any payments that may have to be made to staff to be transferred, in terms of making up for differences in labour conditions - but that's what you would expect."

Advising the MoD

The Dutch ministry of defence conducts its real estate procurement separately from the rest of the government's departments, which use the Rijksgebouwendienst's (RGD) PPP directorate's in-house advisers.

The defence ministry engaged Deloitte as financial advisers on the Kromhout deal, and Grontmij as technical advisers.

Diederik von der Staay of the government PPP directorate says that these roles may not be outsourced in the future.

He says there's now "a question of whether they should conduct any future projects themselves, or whether they should ask us to do that.

"They hired quite a lot of people from outside their organisation - there's actually a very small number of people from the ministry itself involved in the project. I'm not sure if they want to continue doing that or to work with the experts we have now.

"To us it seems like a lot of money and work that they put in on the procurement side, compared to what we do - it seemed a lot to us, though on the other hand it was a huge project."

The MoD line is that "The ministry of Defence has its own real estate service (Dienst Vastgoed Defensie) for infrastructure and also the Defence Material Organization for all other procurements. No decision has been made on where future procurements will be done."

Legal advice on the MoD side came from Dutch firm Van Doorne.

The future

The Netherlands' first defence PPP has, by all accounts, gone as smoothly as could have been hoped. This would appear to bode well for the Dutch defence ministry using the model in the future - but Bart Meesters of A&O says it will "require a change of mind in the defence ministry".

"Certainly there is a lot of scope for the use of the model - in the first place in accommodation, but that could expand to the same areas as you see in the UK."

The ministry of defence's project leader was Ed Vissers. He says: "The results of using PPP on this project are very positive from a financial point of view.

"The PPP promised a saving of around 9 - 11 per cent versus a more traditional approach; in the end we made a saving of about 15 per cent. A complete evaluation of this tender is in the making and will be publicized later this year or maybe beginning next year.

"PPP Kromhout Barracks was a pilot project for PPP. In the meantime the ministry of Defence has finalized a new sourcing strategy which is mainly driven by effectiveness. PPP is now one of our 'official' possibilities in matters of sourcing."

Vissers was also able to highlight his ministry's likely next PPP: "The new Netherlands Military Museum will probably be procured by way of PPP. The Rijksgebouwendienst has been involved in making the PPP and could be tasked with the project."

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