This Chapter establishes partnership, risk and performance management as essential elements within a PPP administrative environment. It provides the definitions, theoretical frameworks, principles and processes for each element, using the perspective of the public partner in PPP. It also provides context for the research problem by establishing a foundation that can be used for investigating these elements at an operational level that should lead to better VfM outcomes.
Specific issues identified for PPP partnership management include: organisational culture, management commitment and support, employee capability and expertise, clear and open communication, relationship continuity and conflict management.
For PPP risk management, the issues identified include: contract variation, change of consortium members, contract termination, end of concession hand-over, skills transfer and reputation damage.
PPP performance management raises issues such as: KPI modification, availability of performance data, contract management and the application of penalties and abatement.
The next Chapter examines the partnership, risk and performance management practices within the setting of selected case studies of Australian PPP, thus attempting to align theory of this Chapter with practice and enable a more meaningful understanding of the issues.