After the Ribbon Cutting: Governing PPPs in the Medium to Long Term

Much attention has gone towards ‘up-front’ processes when delivering infrastructure public–private partnerships (PPPs), but less on how to best govern after the ribbon is cut and the infrastructure built. This paper identifies the primary contractual and institutional governance challenges arising in the medium to long term of PPP concession contracts and explores these governance challenges through interviews with high-level PPP industry insiders. The paper presents new findings on the importance of good public administration for successful PPP operation, and on the interesting evolution of medium- to long-term governance arrangements. It finds that although industry interviewees agreed PPP governance had improved significantly, they had differing views on how capable Australian states were in governing PPP and how well this task was being undertaken. They were also split on the adequacy of transparency; half feeling satisfied with the current contractual arrangements, and the other half favouring greater transparency, because commercial confidentiality had alienated the public.