In democracies, PPPs must be designed and implemented with a concern for transparency. Public trust in these arrangements and their sound management require that performance and financial information about them be made readily available to the public. Meeting this obligation is a responsibility of both partners, but it is typically the public partner who takes the lead and ensures the public's interests are protected in the contract and in practice.
Public partners do a mixed job of providing information. London Underground issues a yearly report that provides performance information for all three of its PPP contracts. The New York City Department of Transportation required Cemusa to establish and give it access to an electronic inventory tracking system that would also provide data on complaints, advertising and financial information and that would also interface with 311. However, there are no contractual requirements for regular public reporting of this data; neither does it appear in the city's performance reporting tool, the Mayor's Management Report.
The Indiana Finance Authority, the public partner in the Indiana Toll Road PPP, makes public documents related to the agreement easily accessible. It features a prominent link on its website for information on the ITR and provides the request for proposals, the bids, and the entire concession agreement, including its amendment, accompanying schedules and operating standards manuals.
On the other hand, finding performance or financial information on the ITR is more difficult. The website for the ITR, managed by the Indiana Toll Road Concession Company (ITRCC), does not include performance indicators or annual reports. To find audited financial statements, one must visit the website of the Macquarie Infrastructure Group, which, together with Cintra Concessions, has formed the consortium that owns the ITRCC through a series of subsidiaries. The relevant financial statements are for a limited liability company called Statewide Mobility Partners that owns the ITR Concession Company Holdings, LLC, which in turn owns the ITRCC that manages the ITR. As of September 2008, the most recent financial statement available is almost two years old, for the year ending December 31, 2006.91 The lack of information further thwarts transparency and makes it impossible to assess the PPPs performance or financial viability.
Public partners in PPPs should develop appropriate public reporting channels for the review and evaluation of the PPP. The public partner should mandate a level of disclosure that mirrors its own standards, and should subject the PPP to annual review by the auditor, comptroller or a special PPP review office. In the UK, the National Audit Office reviews both individual projects and PPPs as a model, while Her Majesty's Treasury is accountable for overall policy regarding PPPs.
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91 Statewide Mobility Partners LLC and Subsidiary. Consolidated Financial Statements for the year ending December 31, 2006. Available online at http://www.macquarie.com.au/au/mig/acrobat/financials_itr_dec06.pdf.