"Public-private partnerships (PPPs) play an increasingly central role in the delivery of public services worldwide, promoting long-term institutional cooperation through multi-sector partnerships. If well-structured and managed, PPPs offer the opportunity to expand public service capacities, as well as the reach, efficiency and effectiveness of services delivery, while sharing financial and operational risks and responsibilities with private partners. Yet many PPPs experience conflict and fail, squandering public resources and falling short in serving the public interest rather than creating value for the public. This book undertakes an extensive analysis of the contractual arrangements and relationships that serve as the scaffolding for PPPs, and how they can be designed, developed and managed to promote more effective, accountable and sustainable partnerships for public services delivery. Centered in this book are two in-depth case studies of complex, multi-actor PPPs, one in the United States and one in the United Kingdom, that employed outcomes-based contracts in arranging for service provision to vulnerable populations. The book draws on multiple theoretical models to characterize the organizational structures, contractual features, and exchange relationships among the respective sets of PPP partners. It presents theory-informed, comparative analyses using rich case study data to illuminate how the formal and relational contract features structured the collaborations and either supported or impeded the success of the PPPs. The analysis generates new knowledge that challenges the predominance of the traditional formal contract that has governed most PPPs and introduces new thinking about relational contracting and systems change to enhance the success of PPPs.

The high-profile nature of the cases and substantial documentation of both formal and informal aspects of the partner relationships over time provide insight into the dynamics of PPP relationships and the outcomes-based contracts undergirding them, as well as how they shape outcomes and accountability to the public. Practitioners will derive specific, original guidance and examples from this book on how to champion public value in designing and executing a PPP contract, center relationship building and fortify PPPs with effective institutional and accountability mechanisms, and sustain long-term, public-private collaboration"--.