One area that Governments have had to address is the lack of community trust in PPPs. This finding was alluded to in NSW PPP inquiries, with the NSW Public Accounts Committee Inquiry into Public Private Partnerships 2006, concluding there is ample evidence of widespread public scepticism of PPPs. A lack of community trust has also been found in the UK.
Appearing before the Committee, an executive from Partnerships UK stated that "public scepticism about Privately Financed Initiatives is almost insoluble".19 Accordingly, building public trust and engaging stakeholders in policy development is the foundation of good policy, and an area that the NSW Government has taken seriously.
A main public concern is the lack of transparency surrounding PPPs. In NSW, this has been address through the mandatory requirement of disclosing a contract summary, which has been certified as a fair representation by the Auditor-General. Contract summaries aim to provide a general overview of the entire contract. Project contractual documents are now also released to the public usually on the website of the procuring agency.
An agency must ensure that a contract summary is made available to the Auditor-General for audit within 30 days of the contract becoming effective. Within 90 days of receipt by the Auditor-General, the audited contract summary must be tabled in Parliament by the responsible Minister. After the summary has been tabled, the agency must advertise the availability of the contract summary in the Public Notices, with contract summaries also being placed on the Working With Government website at www.treasury.nsw.gov.au/wwg.
In NSW, a public interest test (PIT) is issued with expressions of interest for a project. The areas that must be addressed in the PIT are outlined in the WWG 20 and are required to be updated and submitted to Cabinet throughout the tender process. In addition, the RTA is proposing to develop a toll road specific public interest evaluation framework.
PITs also strengthen the value for money test, by addressing value from the perspective of the user and taxpayer. Therefore, Government and procuring agencies are working hard to make sure that PPPs are aligned with the interests of users and tax payers.
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19 Hay, N., Buchbach, V & Ohlin, J. 2006, Improving Public Private Partnerships in NSW, UNSW Law Journal, vol 29. no. 3. page 329.
20 Working With Government: Guidelines for Privately Financed Projects, December 2006. NSW Treasury, pages 60-62. The document can be found at http//:www.treasury.nsw.gov.au/wwg