Infrastructure

Front-end due diligence

The IFSD team was retained by a provincial government seeking to determine whether the costing of a proposed telecom infrastructure project was reasonable.  The team built a cost estimating relationship model to build a normative (i.e. should cost) lifecycle estimate for the project.  The unique data acquired by the team enabled a very high quality statistically based estimate (phase 1) which was subsequently validated by a bottom-up engineering estimate (phase 2).  The resulting reduced fiscal allocation is expected to save the government $700 million+ over the project lifecycle.

Performance Framework

IFSD was retained by the Assembly of First Nations (AFN) and First Nations Caring Society to work with First Nations child and family services (FNCFS) agencies to develop a wellbeing-based performance framework that functioned at the level of child, family and community.  The performance framework framed a bottom-up FN community-based approach to budgeting and results that is expected to be core to the program, operating and capital planning for First Nations and their delegated CFS agencies.  The overall reform package being negotiated between Canada and the parties is expected to be up to $20 billion over the next five years.

Long-term needs assessment

IFSD provided the Assembly of First Nations (AFN) with a long-term, 30-year, forecast of on-reserve housing needs.  The research project included considerations for demographics, costing and family formation.  AFN was successful in obtaining $2 billion in Budget 2021 for first nations housing.

Thought leadership

Infrastructure Canada asked the IFSD (via contribution agreement) to develop a methodology for an infrastructure assessment that could be used by all three orders of government in Canada.  IFSD leveraged best practices from leading jurisdictions such as the UK, Australia and New Zealand to develop a novel assessment approach that concurrently targets economic growth, inclusion, environment and resilience.  

Best value procurement

A provincial government asked the IFSD team to critically assess the appropriate procurement approach to ensure best value for taxpayers for a large-scale infrastructure project (i.e. sole source vs. competitive).  Important considerations were identified for price, value, technology as well as the assessment and transfer of risk.  The government accepted the recommendation and changed its procurement strategy to pursue a competitive tender based on the project’s research findings.