Modelling the drivers for public-private partnerships (PPP) provision of United Kingdom (UK) social infrastructure

As the devolved governments of the United Kingdom (UK) continue to develop innovations of Public-Private Partnerships (PPP) for social infrastructure provision, through the application of Principal Components Analysis (PCA), this research develops as PPP drivers model for partnership based procurement in the UK. Despite being lambasted for delivering poor Vale for Money (VfM), the regional UK governments have committed to cross-sectoral partnering and subsequently the previous Private Finance Initiative (PFI) has been reformed and replaced with several nuances designed to function across these jurisdictional markets. Thus, the purpose of this enquiry is to investigate the drivers of PPP which validate these frameworks as a credible mechanism for future social infrastructure provision. From an extensive interrogation of literature, this research identified 19 drivers for empirical investigation. With this list, the research invited key PPP stakeholder organisations as per McErlane et al. (2016) to evaluate these drivers by means of quantitative Survey Questionnaires to ascertain salience as well as to derive the inputs to develop the conceptual PPP drivers model. A sample of 220 organisations was invited to participate. The research received 73 responses equating to a response rate of 33%. Using SPSS, data was analysed according to a Relative Importance Index to establish ranking salience as well as Kendall’s Coefficient of Concordance to test for statistical significance. The three foremost ranking drivers respectively were 'improved maintainability', 'improved service quality' and 'incentivised private-sector performance'. In addition to this, through the application of PCA, the research developed a PPP drivers model comprising two key components, namely; 'financial benefits' and 'service efficiencies'. Considered a forefather of PPP, the findings of this research make a valuable contribution internationally and domestically. Moreover, as private-sector participation in infrastructure provision continues to gather momentum, this research offers clarity around strategic project commonalities for improved stakeholder collaboration.