Why do politicians employ public–private partnerships? Results from a mixed-method study

Public–private partnerships (PPPs) have become increasingly common in government infrastructure programs around the world. This study collates and categorises the types of rationales that scholars have identified as the reasons for governments to use PPPs. It tests these scholarly-identified rationales through interviews and surveys with former ministers and political advisers in Australian governments. The study finds politicians and their advisers generally believe that PPPs have a range of financial, risk management, and project management advantages relative to traditional infrastructure procurement models. Benefits are myriad and often overlapping and include factors concerning the presentation of public sector balance sheets, bringing forward infrastructure delivery, perceived value for money, efficiency, and greater innovation. Assertions that political benefits are a driver for the use of PPPs are not quantitatively supported, although qualitative evidence of governance and symbolic benefits exists.

Points for practitioners

• This study collates 45 drivers that public policy and public administration scholars have argued are rationales for the use of PPPs. This study identifies 14 of those rationales which politicians and their advisors agree are drivers to use the PPP delivery model.
• Politicians and their advisers are generally supportive of the PPP model and believe it to be technically superior to traditional procurement options for financial, risk management, project management, and policy/public administration benefits.
• Politicians and their advisers generally reject that there are direct political benefits to the PPP delivery model and that this is a driver for their use of it. Notwithstanding this, evidence exists of governance, risk management, and symbolic benefits that offer indirect political advantages to governments.
• Politicians believe that PPPs offer overlapping and integrated advantages in design, operation, innovation, efficiency, maintenance, and life cycle costing, relative to other delivery models.