Public‐Private Partnerships for Service Delivery

This article reports on the performance of services contracted out by the public sector to private sector organisations. The conclusions are based on probably the biggest‐ever questionnaire survey on this topic to‐date: it covered 7,500 public‐private partnerships, and was replicated annually over three years. The private sector organisations providing the services included multinationals like IBM and Andersen Consulting as well as local firms. The public sector “clients” were all from three Australian states or the Australian federal government. The study not only shows that these partnerships are set to go on expanding fast, but also explores the ways in which they have been successful and the pitfalls which the partners need to avoid.