AUTHORS’ NOTE

There have been many reports published of research into Public Private Partnerships (PPPs), focusing on matters such as project delivery, risk allocation, financing and time or cost outcomes. For Australian and New Zealand PPP practices, the findings of these studies1 demonstrate that PPPs reduce the likelihood of time and cost escalation on major projects during the design and construction phase.

The operating performance of mature PPPs as experienced by service providers is less well understood. While PPP projects have been operating in Australia for some 25 years, there is a lack of independent research on the operating performance of PPPs in meeting the service objectives of governments and their communities.

The term ‘service provider’ is defined in this report as meaning those employees utilising the PPP capital assets to deliver services to their client community members. They may include school principals, doctors, wardens, administrative or management staff. In some PPP models those employees are from the public sector and in other cases they are employed through the PPP consortium.

This research investigates whether mature operating PPPs are meeting the service delivery outcomes expected by service providers. It assessed whether the promised uplift in service benefits, advertised by the proponents of a PPP social infrastructure project to the service providers and the wider community, have been achieved.

This is one of the first in-depth research projects investigating the operating performance of social PPP projects from the perspective of the service providers in Australia and New Zealand. Service providers in social infrastructure, compared to economic infrastructure, are more likely to physically work in the PPP facility over the long term and through full-time employment. Moreover, these service providers are more likely to become committed, and in some cases emotionally attached, to the PPP facility and its service provision. For example, a school principal, by nature of their work, may be attuned to the effect the classroom layout and upkeep has on student behaviour, whereas a toll-road operator, analysing traffic data remotely, is more likely to have a transactional and somewhat simple fee-for-service relationship.

During the authors’ extensive contact with service providers, many expressed an appreciation of research that focused on them. They were universally enthusiastic in engaging with the workshops and providing their experiences and insights with a view to improving future PPP projects, and thereby improving the services outcomes to their client communities.

Professor Colin Duffield

Department of Infrastructure Engineering University of Melbourne

Dr Ali Mohammed Saeed

Department of Infrastructure Engineering University of Melbourne

Mr Nick Tamburro

Principal Drum Advisory