Managing Projects with the Public, -bringing Partnering, Contracts and Financing together in Building Public Services

Construction companies and public sector units increasingly cooperate closely in developing public services. In sharp contrast to UK however, the use of Public private partnerships (PPP) in Denmark has been hesitant. This means that the contractual, financial and the skill basis for this type of projects have had trouble to develop.

The paper views PPP as an interaction between an emergent governance frame and operational activities in the project. PPP is an element of a networked public sector and the paper takes a network and political process approach to the shaping of PPP in Denmark. It is analysed how the governance frame for these type of projects constituted a window of opportunity in the late nineties for “sale and lease back” arrangements, combined with partnering and more traditional design-build contracts.

A case of a municipality renewing its school services, exploiting this window of opportunity shows that on the operational level the contractual, financial and skill basis for the project has to be mobilized, negotiated, partly stabilized and renegotiated. The participating actors thus have to develop a new set of skills in dealing with municipalities and managing operations in PPPs.