Public Private Partnerships have become an almost common method of facilitating the provision of large public infrastructure. But the two sides, though working together to achieve a common goal, have different needs and motivations. What can be done to bridge the divide?
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Most of my work is done at the interface between the public sector and the private sector. In large scale PPP transactions in statutory licensing processes in large scale procurements. So I get to see the public sector and the private sector interfacing with each other.
I act both for the public sector and for the private sector and stemming from that there is a very obvious learning and that learning is neither the private sector understands the public sector nor the public sector understands the private sector. On the one hand you have the private sector which is conversant about monetary outcomes: it meets the contract specification what will optimise financial return.
On the other hand you have the public sector which is concerned about a wide range of policy outcomes. The fact that government has to serve the diverse stakeholder base and the fact of consultation and process is often at the heart of government activity and by process I mean a clear public accountability for everything which is done.
Now take an example, major PPP project, say a desalination project: on the one hand the private sector is looking to drive financial returns; on the other hand the public sector is certainly is looking for something which is value for money. That doesn’t mean the cheapest outcome, it means optimising the value and it’s also looking for a process which is defensible and you also want to address the various stakeholder groups like the landowners, the persons close to the plant site and all the other multitude of parties who will have a role in relation to the project.
There is an eternal verity in that interaction. It’s an interaction which I see almost every day of my practising life. It’s an interaction which tends to be relearned in each process. Consequently the most successful project is where there is a blending of those two dynamics and that only happens when there are insights brought from each side to see the aims and outcomes which the other seeks to achieve.
