In order to monitor the private partner's performance, from the point of view of the incentives to efficiency, it is more appropriate to focus regulation on the goals and not on the means. Put differently, ideally the control should be focused on objective measures of products or services provided and not on the investment or expenses incurred to generate them. Therefore, the supervision and the disclosure of information in relation to said measures become essential.
However, there are exceptions to this rule. When the results of a bad performance or investment deficiencies give rise to serious and irreversible consequences that go beyond the economy (e.g. water pollution), there are grounds to focus the control on the process and the means since waiting for the consequences would be inappropriate.
Therefore, in the process of performance monitoring, the overseeing body will carry out a physical supervision during the construction stage to ensure that the assets meet the required quality standards of the contract, and an economic supervision to control the financial rationale behind budgetary overruns. And in addition to execute the performance monitoring during operations, the public partner will have to manage the relationship between the different stakeholders, to ensure a regular and effective communication. In any case, it is essential to supervise the information associated to costs and revenues and to have clearly defined performance measures in order to achieve the objectives of the O&M stage. Finally, both partners will have to establish a system of change management, to deal with unexpected new conditions like technological or political change, previous errors and sub-optimal quality standards, or an underestimation of the complexity of the intervention.
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Transparency of the private partner performances [Mexico: Acuerdo Secretaria de Hacienda Diario Oficial 9 Abril 2004] 33. A partir del inicio de la vigencia de los contratos de servicios de largo plazo, las dependencias y entidades deberán reportar, a través del Sistema Integral de Información de los Ingresos y Gasto Público, la información que especifique la Secretaría, a fin de evaluar el cumplimiento de los objetivos y metas que se hayan establecido cuando se solicitó la autorización de realizar el proyecto para prestación de servicios correspondiente. 34. La Secretaría y la Contraloría, por conducto de la unidad administrativa que corresponda, en el ámbito de sus respectivas competencias, podrán solicitar en cualquier momento información relativa a los proyectos para prestación de servicios y a los contratos de servicios de largo plazo, con el objeto de conocer su situación y el avance en la ejecución de los mismos. |