Social infrastructure partnerships: a firm rock in a storm?

Abstract

Purpose-The purpose of this paper is to use the example of public housing renewal public-private partnerships (PPPs) to build knowledge on whether social infrastructure PPPs may appeal to the private sector as a less risky investment in a time of global financial uncertainty. Design/methodology/approach-The research is based on an international literature review and a limited number of semi-structured interviews with social housing PPP participants in England, the USA and Australia. These interviews were conducted by Dr Gilmour as part of his doctoral research in 2008. Findings-The familiar distinction between social and other forms of infrastructure PPPs has been found to be unhelpful in the case of public housing renewal. This type of PPPs, through their cross-subsidisation model, face relatively high revenue risk during a recession. However, the commitment of the public sector to the social goals of such projects suggests contract negotiation rather than default is likely if problems occur. PPP risks need to be understood by studying their detailed contract terms, rather than by broad categorisations. Research limitations/implications-This paper provides a grounded discussion rather than detailed research findings. Only a small number of projects are included and they are not necessarily representative. Cross-national comparison is challenging because of different housing policies and economic conditions. Originality/value-This paper fills a gap in the literature by both contrasting approaches to a particular type of social infrastructure PPP in different countries, and by making an early assessment of the likely impact of recent turbulence in financial and property markets.

Indonesian Life Expectancy: Role of Health Infrastructure and Socio-Economic Status

“…On the other hand, other researchers are showing that there is no significant influence of infrastructure on improving the quality of human resources. They revealed that the cause of these conditions was limited government resources (Monteiro & Turnovsky, 2008), lack of trust from policymakers (Qureshi, 2009), economic conditions such as recession (Gilmour, et al, 2010) and structural barriers to infrastructure (Freed, et al, 2013;Gupta, et al, 2014;Pulok, et al, 2016).…”

Impact of infrastructure on socio-economic development of Russian regions: methodology and analysis

“…To expand the scope and improve the efficiency of PPP mechanisms in Russian regions, it may be useful to study the foreign experience of using such financing schemes in infrastructure development. For example, in Australia, 10-15% of total investment in infrastructure by the mid-2000s was carried out at the expense of public-private partnerships (Gilmour et al, 2010).…”

A Conceptual Review of Social Infrastructure Projects

“…In this regard, economic infrastructure and social infrastructure have consequently emerged. Although both economic and social infrastructures have significant social impacts on individuals, communities, and the general public at large in terms of practicality, a distinction between both infrastructures based on their social impact is ambiguous and difficult to establish (Gilmour et al, 2010). Likewise, SIP is services delivered by welfare agencies, more commonly known as "human services".…”

“…Previous studies have focused mainly on examining the SIP within the PPP contracting method (Jefferies, 2006;Jefferies, and McGeorge, 2008;Jefferies and McGeorge, 2009;Syuhaida and Aminah, 2009;Hellowell and Pollack, 2011;Gilmour et al, 2010). PPP is the wider term used to indicate the specific partnership between public and private sector.…”

“…Some researches are conducted to address the very specific sector such as stadium (Jefferies et al 2001;Jefferies et al 2002;Jefferies, 2010), housing renewal (Gilmour et al 2010), hospital Love et al, 2011) and school (Love et al, 2011). Although the emphasis of the researches is only placed upon specific structure, the structure is understandable as SIP.…”