Public-private partnerships
A great deal of knowledge, influence and customer contact is contained within public organisations. A window cleaning firm with a recommendation letter from the municipal authority will more easily find customers within that municipality. Furthermore, public organisations also have their markets and objectives, except that their primary objectives are often of a non-financial nature. Citizens ' satisfaction, safety, quality of life and ensuring an attractive neighbourhood are typical examples. Finances form a necessary condition here, and this is where opportunities for collaboration may be found.
Whoever is able to arrange a collaboration in such a way that it helps the public organisation fulfil its goals more successfully, or can ensure that extra funds remain to devote to quality improvement, has a good chance of engaging a public entity in such collaboration. The point is thus to pursue parallel objectives.
So far we have examined collaborations between two or more private organisations. But what if the opposite partner is a government agency or public institution, a school or a hospital, or a research institute? It may well be that businesses view such organisations as inward-looking, bureaucratic and difficult to work with. Conversely, the public sector may see collaborating with the business sector as something akin to selling your soul to the devil.
The organisation form for a public-private partnership can be a new legal entity, but in many cases the public organisation assumes a facilitating role while the business performs the activities. A public authority may, for example, sell land to a project developer and set certain parameters for the development of a new housing estate. Or, a group of primary schools may refer parents seeking afterschool care to a specific commercial child care centre. In such instances, an arrangement concerning financial settlement may suffice. 93