Putting “Partnership” into PPPs: An Australian Perspective

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Chris Aulich

Abstract

Mixes of public and private organizations have become major elements of contemporary public policy reform, with governments in many developed countries utilizing private sector organizations to provide funds or delivery options for public services. In particular, the private sector is increasingly being seen as a source of funding to establish new public infrastructure and/or maintain older public infrastructure. The term “publicprivate partnership†(PPP) has become popular to describe many of these mixes, but the paper raises concerns that the term is used with imprecision, covering many very different arrangements. The PPP umbrella includes a set of arrangements that are little different from traditional contracting or outsourcing. These arrangements involve public-private mixes, but unless they encourage collaboration, mutuality and trust between the parties involved, it is argued that they can hardly be termed “partnershipsâ€. The paper proposes a number of criteria that should be present if the arrangements are to be considered as real partnerships, including the development of structures to give concrete expression to the collaboration. The author also observes that some genuine partnerships can be overlooked by not examining arrangements both upstream and downstream from the point of formal agreement or partnership.

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