Public–Private Partnerships and the Public Accountability Question

Abstract

Public–private partnerships (PPPs) are growing in popularity as a governing model for delivery of public goods and services. PPPs have existed since the Roman Empire, but their expansion into traditional public projects today raises serious questions about public accountability. This article examines public accountability and its application to government and private firms involved in PPPs. An analytical framework is proposed for assessing the extent to which PPPs provide (or will provide) goods and services consistent with public sector goals of effectiveness, efficiency, and equity. Six dimensions—risk, costs and benefits, political and social impacts, expertise, collaboration, and performance measurement—are incorporated into a model that assists public managers in improving partnerships’ public accountability.

University Housing Development: A PPP Approach

“…Access comes in the form of financial, managerial, and technical expertise. This desire to access the private sector is based in the belief that the public sector is incapable on its own to accomplish the level of desired project efficiency (Forrer, Kee, Newcomer, & Boyer, 2010). Thus, the public agency desires an arrangement to account for known shortcomings, and those are believed to be correctable through the partnering with private business.…”

“…Other potential benefits include reducing the cost of contracting (Forrer et al, 2010), financial improvements on borrowing rates (Hodge & Greve, 2010), relationship-building due to the longterm nature of the contract (Brinkerhoff & Brinkerhoff, 2011;Steyer & Gilbert, 2013), and the perception of governmental innovation (Forrer et al, 2010;Link & Link, 2009). These represent financial-and perception-based benefits that aim to cut short-and long-term costs through the collaboration with private business partners and through the use of entrepreneurial financing strategies.…”

Time and space model of urban pollution migration: Economy-energy-environment nexus network

“…The results show that because of the regional disparities in anthropogenic impact on the environment, formulating specific region-oriented energy saving and emission reduction strategies may provide a more practical and effective approach to achieving sustainable development in China. Xing et al [23] determined the influence of backwash effects and spread effects in Changsha, Zhujiang River, and Xiangtan in China, while Forrer et al [24] found that the key cities of China have exerted a backwash effect on the nearby rural counties and villages and a spread effect on other cities. Unfortunately, these geographical methods have not been widely applied to the study of sustainable development.…”

Government policies to enhance access to credit for infrastructure-based PPPs: an approach to classification and appraisal

“…A comprehensive framework is needed in order to allow policy makers to take stock of the state of the practice and appraise the costs and benefits of different instruments to take more informed decisions regarding the most appropriate instruments to be introduced. A PPP can generate positive benefits for government authorities when risks allocated between the public and the private sectors are balanced (Forrer et al 2010). On the contrary, if the risks transferred to the private counterparty are limited or inappropriate, the probability of adverse selection (Vecchi et al 2016;Saussier 2013) and moral hazard (Engel, Fischer, and Galetovic 2009;Hellowell, Vecchi, and Caselli 2015) increases, which may give rise to deleterious consequences (a forced renegotiation of the contract, bailout of the private operator or even a termination of the contract are examples).…”