Ā§1.2 Public Infrastructure and the Private Sector
Public infrastructure can be defined as facilities which are necessary for the functioning of the economy and society. These are thus not an end in themselves, but a means of supporting a nationās economic and social activity, and include facilities which are ancillary to these functions, such as public-sector offices or accommodation. Broadly speaking, public infrastructure can be divided into:
ā¢ āeconomicā infrastructure, such as transportation facilities and utility networks (for water, sewage, electricity, etc.), i.e. infrastructure considered essential for day-to-day economic activity; and
ā¢ āsocialā infrastructure such as schools, hospitals, libraries, prisons, etc., i.e. infrastructure considered essential for the structure of society.
A distinction can also be made between āhardā infrastructure, whether economic or social, primarily involving provision of buildings or other physical facilities, and āsoftā infrastructure, involving the provision of services, either for economic infrastructure (e.g. street cleaning), or for social infrastructure (e.g. education and training, social services).
There is probably universal agreement that the state has to play a rƓle in the provision of public infrastructure, on the grounds that:
ā¢ The private sector cannot take account of āexternalitiesāāi.e. general economic and social benefitsāand therefore public-sector intervention is required (cf. Ā§5.2.1).
ā¢ Without such intervention infrastructure which has to be freely available to all (āpublic goodsā) will not be built, especially where this involves networks, such as roads, or services, such as street lighting.
ā¢ Competitive provision of infrastructure may not be efficient, and a monopoly provision requires some form of public control.
ā¢ Even where competition is possible, the public sector should still provide āmerit goodsā, i.e. those that would otherwise be underprovided (such as schools, as the rich could pay for private schools but the poor would get no education).
ā¢ Infrastructure requires a high initial investment on which only a very long-term return can be expected. It may be difficult to raise private capital for this investment without some public-sector support.
It could thus be argued that infrastructure should be provided by the public sector where competitive market pricing would distort behaviour or lead to loss of socio-economic benefits. But history suggests that there are two ways for the state to do thisāeither by direct provision, or by facilitation of private-sector provision (whether through regulation, tax subsidy or similar incentives, or by contract). As discussed below, the use of private capital to fund economic infrastructure (e.g. for transportation) is of long standing. Equally, it was generally only during the 19th and 20th centuries that the state took over responsibility, mainly from religious or private charity, for the provision of much social infrastructure (e.g. for schools and hospitals). Indeed it may be said that private provision of a large proportion of public infrastructure was the historical norm until recently, but the definition of ānecessaryā public infrastructure has clearly widened over the last couple of centuries. PPPs may therefore be considered a modern way of facilitating private provision to help meet an increased demand for public infrastructure.
Ā§1.3 PublicāPrivate Partnerships
Ā§1.3.1 Meaning
The term āpublicāprivate partnershipā appears to have originated in the United States, initially relating to joint public- and private-sector funding for educational programmes, and then in the 1950s to refer to similar funding for utilities (cf. Ā§17.6.2), but came into wider use in the 1960s to refer to publicāprivate joint ventures for urban renewal. It is also used in the United States to refer to publicly-funded provision of social services by non public-sector bodies, often from the voluntary (not-for-profit) sector, as well as public funding of private-sector research and development in fields such as technology. In the international-development field the term is used when referring to joint government, aid agency and private-sector initiatives to combat diseases such as AIDS and malaria, introduce improvements in farming methods, or promote economic development generally. Most of these can be described as āpolicy-basedā or āprogramme-basedā PPPs.
However the subject of this book is what may be called āproject-basedā or ācontract-basedā PPPs, a more recent development. (Although some urban-renewal PPPs are also project-specific, they do not involve the same long-term relationship.) PPPs as defined here have the following key elements:
ā¢ a long-term contract (a āPPP Contractā) between a public-sector party and a private-sector party;
ā¢ for the design, construction, financing, and operation of public infrastructure (the āFacilityā) by the private-sector party;
ā¢ with payments over the life of the PPP Contract to the private-sector party for the use of the Facility, made either by the public-sector party or by the general public as users of the Facility; and
ā¢ with the Facility remaining in public-sector ownership, or reverting to public-sector ownership at the end of the PPP Contract.
In some cases, a PPP Contract may involve major upgrading of existing infrastructure rather than a āgreenfieldā construction. However private-sector acquisition or management of existing public infrastructure without any major new capital investment or upgrading is not considered to be a PPP as defined here. Similarly private-sector provision of soft infrastructure, which involves no significant investment in fixed assets (and hence no need for private-sector financing), falls into the category of āoutsourcingā rather than PPPs, although obviously the boundary is not precise as soft services are often associated with hard infrastructure (cf. Ā§13.2). Nor is a PPP a simple joint-venture investment between the public and private sectors, unless this is also linked to a PPP Contract (cf. Ā§17.5). Also this book does not deal in detail with smaller PPPs, usually at a municipal level, in sectors such as parking garages; this smaller end of the market follows the same general principles, but is obviously less elaborate in contract form and financing (cf. Ā§8.5.3).
The public-sector party to a PPP Contract (the āPublic Authorityāāalso known by a variety of other terms such as the āPublic Entityā, āPublic Partyā, āGovernment Procuring Entityā, āInstitutionā, āContracting Authorityā or just the āAuthorityā) may be a central-government department, a state or regional government, a local (municipal) authority, a public agency or any other entity which is public-sector controlled. The private-sector party is normally a special-purpose company (the āProject Companyāāalso known as the āPrivate Partyā), created by private-sector investors specifically to undertake the PPP Contract. It should be noted that the relationship between these two parties is not a partnership in the legal sense, but is contractual, being based on the terms of the PPP Contract. āPartnershipā is largely a political slogan in this context (but cf. Ā§6.6).
Ā§1.3.2 PPP v. Public-Sector Procurement
A PPP is thus an alternative to procurement of the Facility by the public sector (āpublic-sector procurementā), using funding from tax revenues or public borrowing. In a typical public-sector procurement (known as ādesign-bid-buildā), the Public Authority sets out the specifications and design of the Facility, calls for bids on the basis of this detailed design, and pays for construction of the Facility by a private-sector contractor. The Public Authority has to fund the full cost of construction, including any cost overruns. Operation and maintenance of the Facility are entirely handled by the Public Authority, and the contractor takes no responsibility for the long-term performance of the Facility after the (relatively short) construction-warranty period has expired.
In a PPP, on the other hand, the Public Authority specifies its requirements in terms of āoutputsā, which set out the public services which the Facility is intended to provide, but which do not specify how these are to be provided. It is then left to the private sector to design, finance, build and operate the Facility to meet these long-term output specifications. The Project Company receives payments (āService Feesā) over the life of the PPP Contract (perhaps 25 years on average) on a pre-agreed basis, which are intended to repay the financing costs and give a return to investors. The Service Fees are subject to deductions for failure to meet output specifications, and there is generally no extra allowance for cost overruns which occur during construction or in operation of the Facility.
The result of this PPP a...