In the UK, when PPPs were first introduced, the government was interested on using private finance to meet the infrastructure needs, removing the public assets from the public budget. It is notable that UK guidance includes Value for Money Assessment
Guidance (HM Treasury, 2006), which sets out a three-stage process to assess the value for money of PPP schemes, and the Quantitative Assessment User Guide (HM Treasury, 2007), serving as a practical tool for conducting the quantitative assessment.
Both Australia and New Zealand have provided extensive guidance on the use of value for money as the decision criterion for PPP projects.
Australia has a long history of PPP development. Despite being considered a leading country in PPP development, with a sophisticated PPP market, there exists a lack of in-depth evaluations of social PPP infrastructure. More than 30 of such projects have been completed and are currently in their operational phase. Bianchi et al (2017) report that there is a paucity of knowledge with respect to PPP outcomes and link this to the lack of disclosure and transparency in how completed PPP projects are performing.
Governments have acknowledged that PPPs can provide stronger incentives to minimise whole-of-life costs and improve service quality than is possible within the public sector. This conclusion is supported by international studies which have shown that PPPs can lead to cost efficiencies and better value for money outcomes versus traditional procurement models. The research undertaken for this Report evaluates outcomes of mature social PPP projects across Australia and New Zealand from the service providers' perspective.