Public Values in Public–Private Partnerships

Abstract

Although public-private partnerships (PPPs) are often evaluated in terms of efficiency, their impact on public values is often neglected. In order to find out what we know about the public values-PPPs relation, this article reviews public administration literature and describes two opposite perspectives. The first perspective argues that public values are at stake whereas the second argues they are safeguarded or even reinforced. We argue that the assumptions of both perspectives are biased and incomparable due to the fact that each perspective holds a different ontological understanding of the concept of public values. Finally, we provide some ideas for further research.

Planning and Decision Making in Public Management

“…responsibility, transparency, ability to act or quality. They need to consider a fact, that public service should entail constant employment of external counsellors to solve a given problem or realise a given project within planned actions (Reynaers 2014). However, one should exceptionally carefully decide, which services can be developed within public and private partnership or privatisation of so far public activity (Bovaird 2004), taking into consideration not only the financial result, but also common good and satisfaction of guaranteed needs.…”

Public values and administrative reforms in French health care

“…In health care, opportunities for conflicts between public and private values range from balancing equity, medical ethics (Pierru, 2013;Batifoulier, Bessis, & Biencourt, 2011;Batifoulier, Eymard-Duvernay, & Favereau, 2007), and conventions (Diaz-Bone & Thévenot, 2010) with efficiency (a private value) to confronting the frequent problem of imperfect markets (Brown et al, 2006). Conflicts are likely to arise when private partners become involved, even when contractors have minimal discretion (Keeler, 2013;Reynaers and de Graaf, 2014). While there is evidence of successful NPM-driven state and private market integration in France such as patent enforcement (Valdivia, 2011), e-innovation via public online government portals, and health smart cards or electronic patent medical files (Issa, Isaias, & Kommers, 2013;Karunasena et al, 2010) that benefited both the public and the private sectors (Wade, 2014), many arrangements such as the outsourcing of hospital construction and the benchmarking of public care providers (hospital) against private providers (Hartley, 2013) failed.…”

Government facilitation of external initiatives: how Dutch water authorities cope with value dilemmas

“…It can enlarge the reservoir of available knowledge and financial and organizational resources, thereby complementing the strengths of the public sector. There can be efficiency gains (Donahue & Zeckhauser, 2006;Reynaers & De Graaf, 2014), and facilitation can increase productivity and public value creation (Zhang, Crawley, & Kane, 2015). Things can be accomplished that the government could not have done on its own.…”

“…First, PPPs enable projects to be (partly) financed by private consortia. The PPP finance structure gives governments access to alternative debt and equity that traditional public (debt) finance cannot provide (Reynaers & De Graaf, 2014;World Bank Group, 2014). Second, viability gap funding is an instrument that enables funding by a combination of taxpayers' and users' payments.…”