Artikler

Indhold : Nr. 3 : Årgang 10 : 2007

 

Tema

Offentlig-private partnerskaber: et mangetydet begreb

af Guri Weihe

Public-Private Partnerships and Public-Private Mixing:

Some Lessons from History

by Roger Wettenhall

Private Finance: Public Infrastructure without Accountability?

The Case of Privately Financed Roads in the UK

by Jean Shaoul, Anne Stafford and Pam Stapleton

Reguleringen af offentlig-private partnerskaber i Danmark

af Ole Helby Petersen

A Mountainscape which isn't there:

Public-Private Partnerships in Denmark

by Christian Koch

The Role of Trust in Piblic Private Partnerships:

Does Trust Matter?

by J. Edelenbos, E. Klijn and B. Steijn

Recent Insights into the Perfomance of Public-Private Partnerships in an International Perspective

by Carsten Greve

Offentlig-Private Partnerskaber i Sundhedssektoren

af Karsten Vrangbæk

 

Bogomtaler

 

Offentlig-private partnerskaber (i fagsprog ofte benævnt OPP) er et forvaltningspolitisk redskab, der har fået mere og mere opmærksomhed på nationalt og internationalt plan de seneste år. Tanken bag OPP er, at man kan opnå en bedre og mere effektiv offentlig service ved at samarbejde med private firmaer. Målet er, at den offentlige og den private part hver især gør det, de er bedst til. Det er den centrale idé bag partnerskabstanken, og det er her det eventuelle potentiale i OPP som forvaltningsredskab ligger. OPP tog for alvor fart op igennem 1990’erne med det britiske Private Finance Initiative. Antallet af artikler, bøger og officielle rapporter om emnet har siden været i konstant stigning. Men på trods af den megen snak om OPP sker der ikke meget på området her i landet. Det nye Rigsarkiv og Trehøje Skole er de hidtil to eneste eksempler på rendyrkede offentlig-private partnerskaber i Danmark. De danske erfaringer er derfor for få og for sparsomme til at kunne give et entydigt billede af OPP. Vi er derfor nødt til at lægge et internationalt komparativt forvaltningsperspektiv for at kunne danne os et overblik over denne nye trend i den offentlige forvaltning. Den eksisterende forskning ser desuden ud til at være splittet i forhold til at vurdere, hvornår et samarbejde reelt kvalificerer sig som et partnerskab, og om OPP virkelig kan tilbyde det potentiale, man har håbet på. Vi har derfor fået samlet bidrag fra en række af de mest anerkendte forskere inden for feltet for at besvare en række relevante spørgsmål: Hvad er OPP? Hvilken rolle spiller tillid i disse partnerskaber? Hvilke reguleringsmæssige barrierer møder OPP i Danmark? Og hvad er de eventuelle fordele og ulemper ved en sådan forvaltningspolitisk løsning?

 

Dette temanummer af Tidsskriftet Politik søger at give et overblik over den nuværende forskning i OPP og samtidig rykke nærmere en afklaring af de mere omstridte områder i selv samme forskning. Forhåbentligt kan temanummeret bidrage med en øget forståelse af dette komplicerede forvaltningsbegreb.

 

Abstracts:

 

 

Offentlig-private partnerskaber: et mangetydigt begreb

Guðrið Weihe, Ph.d.-stipendiat, International Center for Business and Politics, Copenhagen Business School, 

 

Within the past decade, public-private partnerships (PPP) have become a popular policy tool in many countries. However, although practiced widely, and written about extensively, the conceptual convergence in relation to PPP is still surprisingly limited. This article highlights different understandings and usages of the PPP term, and illustrates how the PPP term covers quite different practices. The analysis suggests that using the same concept to cover inherently different practices is problematic and that it potentially can have negative side effects. A key point is that much of the conceptual bewilderment could be avoided if there was greater awareness about the existence of different usages of the concept. The article concludes by proposing a new way of classifying of PPP.

 

Public-Private Partnerships and Public-Private Mixing: Some Lessons from History

Roger Wettenhall, Centre for Research in Public Sector Management, University of Canberra

 

This article begins by noting the rising interest in so-called public-private partnerships in discourse about public sector management, and notes also some major questions provoked by the uncritical rhetorical use of the term 'PPP'.  It argues that the mixing of public and private is by no means new, and that there may be better examples of genuine partnerships than the arrangements now frequently produced by governmental efforts to attract private capital for the development or renewal of public facilities.  It looks particularly at the traditional 'mixed enterprise' as another type of public-private mix, leading to speculation that there may be lessons to be learned from this and other forms of mixing that may assist in the better functioning of infrastructure projects.

 

Private Finance: public infrastructure without accountability?

The case of privately financed roads in the UK

Jean Shaoul, Anne Stafford and Pam Stapleton, Manchester Business School, University of Manchester

 

This paper examines the reporting and transparency of operational privately financed road projects in the UK under the UK government’s Public Private Partnership (PPP) policy. It finds that there is a lack of clear, consistent routine reporting at all levels about the cost and operation of PPP projects; the public’s right to additional information via Freedom of Information and the Audit Commission Act is very limited; and the level of annual and ad hoc scrutiny is very circumscribed. The most information was available about a project where there was widespread popular opposition which prompted media and official investigations, subsidies and its early termination. The lack of such information makes it difficult to understand where public money is going, how it is being used, and the extent of future commitments and liabilities, thereby preventing an informed public debate about public policy and maintaining democracy.

 

Danish Regulation of Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs)

Ole Helby Petersen, Ph.d.-stipendiat, International Center for Business and Politics,

Copenhagen Business School

 

This article examines the regulation of public-private partnerships (PPPs) in Denmark, an area that has previously been given only minor attention within the literature on PPPs. The article reviews both hard-law and soft-law type regulation of Danish PPPs. The main argument is that contrary to warm official political statements on PPPs the Danish regulatory frame is in many aspects incoherent and uncoordinated with formal rules to some extent pointing in opposite directions, and more soft regulatory tools only partly compensating for this. This leaves Danish public authorities and private partners that wish to engage with PPPs in a regulatory limbo which, at least partly, explains why only very few Danish PPP-projects have been initiated. 

 

A Mountainscape Which Isn’t There

- Public-Private Partnerships in Denmark

Christian Koch, Professor, Institute of Business and Technology, University of Århus, Herning.

 

Public-private partnerships are hesitant innovations with a complex cross-sectional origin and domain. This is also the case in Denmark: In a first round, a PPP variant—sale and lease back—developed among municipalities from the late nineties, but was halted because of a scandal in 2002. In 2004, the government launched an action plan, and PPPs are emerging again, this time in several variants. Drawing on multiple perspectives, public services are viewed as a network of mixed players across sectors like construction, management consulting, and finance, accompanied by a set of regulatory elements: a metagovernance. A status of Danish PPP initiatives is given. The present metagovernance consists of a comparator, guidelines, feasibility studies and a central competence unit. One PPP project is by now in operation, but most results so far are abstract.

 

The Role of Trust in Public Private Partnerships: Does Trust Matter?

Dr. Jurian Edelenbos, Prof. dr. Erik-Hans Klijn and Prof. dr. Bram Steijn, Department of Public Administration, Erasmus University, Rotterdam

 

Decision-making in PPP projects is complex and involves a lot of actors with different knowledge and resources. This means that cooperation is difficult and actors tend to opt for stand-alone strategies to minimize risk.  For some, trust is the answer to coping with complex inter-organizational processes. Trust, then, would seem to be a very promising coordination mechanism in a modern network society where the relations between public and private organizations are increasingly horizontal.

This article explores trust relations between actors in public-private partnerships in infrastructure projects in the Netherlands. It presents the findings of a survey of 123 respondents involved in PPP projects. Each participant was asked to answer questions on the level and sources of trust in a specific project in which the respondent was involved. Questions were also asked about the outcomes of the project. The article discusses the value of trust to cooperation as described in the literature and the importance of trust in networks. Subsequently, the article explores differences in trust between projects and how they relate to perceived outcomes. The article shows that there is a correlation between the two.

 

Recent Insights into the Performance of Public-Private Partnerships in an International Perspective

Carsten Greve, International Center for Business and Politics, Copenhagen Business School

 

The purpose of the article is to provide insight into the recent experience with performance of PPPs. The article builds on previous research in this area and discusses some of the recent findings and results that have appeared internationally. There is an emerging base of evidence about the performance of PPPs, and there are some well performing examples mentioned. There is also agreement about that PPPs will not cure all problems. But it must also be recognized these are still early days, and that we still lack comprehensive, independent, and authoritative assessments of PPPs. After the overview of the available performance results, the article then discusses the challenges that both governments and research face in seeking out more robust knowledge on the performance of PPPs. The article concludes with some suggestions for how to discuss performance of PPPs in the future.

 

Public-Private Partnerships in Health Care

Karsten Vrangbæk, Ph.d., Institut for Statskundskab, Københavns Universitet

 

This article reviews various forms of public-private collaboration in the Danish health sector. It analyses whether newer forms of PPP with extensive risk sharing have been introduced. It concludes that public-private collaboration has long historical roots and is fairly wide spread, but that newer forms of PPP have not been used to the extent that we have seen in Anglo-Saxon countries. This leads to a discussion of possible explanations. A somewhat unclear regulatory framework and a number of risk dimensions for both private and public partners are presented as explanations. Finally it is argued, that the current structural reform, and the elimination of regulatory uncertainties will provide a window of opportunity for more extensive use of PPP in the Danish health sector.