Value for Money Assessment in Public Private Partnership Projects

Sammanfattning: Public Private Partnership, PPP, is a public procurement method involving the private sector used in several countries all over the world, now upcoming in Sweden. The UK, most prominent within this method, states that it offers good value for money, but the economic and financial benefits of PPP are still uncertain and subjects of debate. In order for the projects to be successful and to achieve value for money, a thorough preparatory work with assessing value is crucial. In Sweden the question is raised how the preparatory work are best performed to ease the further implementation. A crucial question related to this is what affects the value for money achieved in PPP projects. The purpose of this study is to investigate and identify value drivers affecting value for money achieved in PPP projects. An explorative multiple-case study has been performed to fulfil the purpose. Four countries have been studied: the UK, Canada, South Africa and Sweden, all with various experiences of PPP. The empirical foundation is based on investigations of national PPP guidelines and interviews performed with expert PPP advisors. Empirics have also been gathered by interviewing professors and a private concessionaire in Sweden. The analysis was performed by applying the empirical findings onto existing theory. Based on the analysis, conclusions answering the purpose was drawn and presented. Three main areas have been identified to include important value drivers in PPP projects. These areas are value assessment, procedure and environment, which represent three levels where value assessment is the core, surrounded by procedure and then environment. In the level of value assessment, technical solutions, time, risk, cost, and benefits has a central role for value for money. In the second level, procedure, five value drivers are identified: feasibility, output specification, competition, contract flexibility and relations. Finally, in the level of environment, authority support, national guidelines and private sector maturity has all shown to be important value drivers for the success of PPP projects.