Exploring public-private partnership challenges and the effects on the construction workforce: A Scotland study

The construction industry is well established in practice and research as a critical contributor in the economic, social, political, environmental, infrastructural and developmental prosperity and wellbeing of countries around the world. These accolades have been particularly argued to be significantly public sector driven because of the social, economic and intellectual investments and inputs attributed to the public sector. On the crusade of 'innovation' and 'adaptability', the shift away from sole execution of public sector construction projects by public construction organisations towards the implementation of variants of public-private partnerships has been widespread. These have come along with intended and observed advantages such as improved innovation, efficiency, quality, finance and risk sharing for public construction projects; these benefits have been occasionally questioned. While literature is saturated with perceived benefits, the challenges remain and provide room for research to contribute improvements to public construction procurement. Following these arguments, this research explores the challenges faced by construction professionals, who are important stakeholders, in public construction procurement and the likely effects on construction project delivery in Scotland. The need for a distinct understanding for Scottish public construction procurement is expanded upon in this paper, although this research does not provide a comparison with other countries in the United Kingdom. Fifteen (15) purposively sampled individuals participated in in-depth semi-structured interviews which were transcribed verbatim. The thematic analyses of these interviews provided research contributions that showed an absence and uncertainty of leadership from project clients, lack of clarity and specificity on project identity and culture, presence of a rigid project environment and an excessive dependence on disincentives/penalties for improved project performance. The presence of these challenges is reiterated to be damaging to human resource motivation, client/contractor relationships and the eventual goal of construction project delivery in Scotland.