When they are properly structured, public-private partnerships enable governments to focus on outcomes instead of inputs. Governments can focus leadership attention on the outcome-based public value they are trying to create. The destination, not the path, becomes the organizing theme around which the project is built.
School PPPs provide a powerful example of how partnerships enable school officials to shift their focus to the core business of learning. When school officials at the Montaigne secondary school near The Hague in the Netherlands needed additional school capacity, they could have just chosen the usual route of getting bids from several contractors to build a school. Instead, they concluded that what they really wanted to buy was a quality learning environment and not just a physical asset-in this case a school building.32 To that end, they entered a PPP with a consortium of private firms that provide cleaning, caretaking, security, grounds maintenance and information technology, leaving school teachers and officials free to spend all their time on the core mission, teaching children.
| While PPPs hold significant benefits as an infrastructure delivery tool, the model is not without its critics. Some of the criticisms are well-grounded and merit careful consideration when evaluating the relative pros and cons of delivery method alternatives. Others, however, are driven by a misunderstanding of PPPs or are based on outdated or incomplete information. For those who would like a fuller understanding of these issues, the most common objections to PPPs are taken up in the appendix. PPPs also present formidable challenges, both at earlier and later stages of market development. Addressing these challenges and maximizing the benefits of PPPs require governments to operate in a new way. The remainder of the study examines what a successful PPP entails and how to implement it. |