Public Private Partnerships
From ClimateNetworkWiki
What is a public-private partnership (PPP)? Partnerships British Columbia states it as a “legally binding contract between government and business for the provision of assets and the delivery of services. The contract allocates responsibilities and business risks among the various partners.”
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Partnerships BC
In British Columbia, Partnership BC has been created and is wholly owned by the Province of British Columbia and is responsible to its shareholder, the Minister of Finance. Thus Partnership BC is a crown corporation of British Columbia working to establish public-private partnerships in areas of transportation, health and advanced education.
Why is the BC government making public-private partnerships a priority?
The BC government has stated its “intention to modernize government to find more efficient and effective approaches to the provision of services and infrastructure in support of health care, transportation, advanced education and other priority programs in the province.” It is said that partnerships are designed to implement “major capital projects that meet public needs at minimum life-cycle cost with an optimum sharing of responsibilities among the partners.” Supporters of PPP’s believe private companies are often more efficient and better run than bureaucratic public bodies. How does public private partnerships affect post secondary education? On page four of the BC Government Letter of Expectations to post secondary institutions it states that, “A public private partnership will be considered the base case for procurement where the province contributes more than $20 million to the capital cost of a project.” Therefore, issues arise with post secondary institutions being able to manage their campuses and expand buildings without private sector control. Partnerships BC believes that the private sector efficiencies include areas such as “overall project management (shorter design and construction periods), innovative design and better construction and maintenance processes.”
One example of public-private partnerships in the area of advanced education was the Charles Jago Northern Sports Centre located at the University of Northern British Columbia. This partnership was supposed to provide value for the money and result in a number of advantages in the construction of the Centre. These advantages include: • A guaranteed maximum price of $29 million for the construction of the facility; • A guaranteed opening date by September 2007; • An increase in scope from the original concept of the facility at no extra capital cost; and, • Assurance of high performance specifications for all playing surfaces to ensure that the facility will be able to host provincial and national competitions. http://www.partnershipsbc.ca/pdf/cjnsc-case%20study.pdf
After the project was completed these advantages were not fully met. The guaranteed cost of 29$ million was not met with millions more being spent. The guaranteed opening date of September was not fully met, with the facility having an official opening in September but before the facility was finished resulting in the facility being only artificially open and then shutting down for another six weeks. Issues with the actual building quality itself have also been brought into question leaving the question that do PPP’s actually have shorter design and construction periods as well as better construction and maintenance processes?
What is the impact of public-private partnerships on campuses?
Within public-private partnerships there are more groups and organizations to keep happy. This results in the public sector and areas such as University campuses having less control on what projects are built, how they are built, to what standard they are built and how they are run. Also PPP’s draw into question should a private company be operating on a public campus, affecting workers/student wages, hours and the buildings environmental operating procedures. Having a private company partially responsible for a building on campus also means that they have strong interests in the service being provided in that building. Private companies are governed by their self-interests, where a public institution is governed by societies best interest, resulting in conflicting interests. Thus, a senate governs campuses but when PPP’s are developed the senate and administration are not the only ones trying to make decisions that affect students and the environment, it is private companies as well.
Arguments against public-private partnerships
Arguments against public-private partnerships worry that they lead to privatization of public sectors. Arguments are made that Partnerships BC is counter productive in the sense that the government has established a crown corporation to help privatization of public goods and services (Health, Transportation and Post Secondary Institutions).
Partnerships British Columbia http://www.partnershipsbc.ca/index.html
Also see BC Government Letter of Expectations
