Shaping the Process: Initiatives, Standards and Projects for Public Private Partnerships in Germany

The management of public buildings is very much on the way to change. As a step along the road Public Private Partnerships (PPP) function as a new procurement route in order to deliver public buildings in an efficient manner under life cycle aspects. The paper begins by a brief overview of the structure of institutional arrangements within public authorities and evaluates the political support. It then reviews the quality and level of acceptance of the guidance provided by Task Forces and Competence Centres on the federal (Bundes) as well as on the state (L‰nder) level. The paper briefly examines the ongoing major legislative changes and initiatives (Beschleunigungsgesetz) in Germany. These particular developments will contribute to the attractiveness of the market not only for national but also for foreign real estate investors, banks, operators and construction companies. In the second part, the paper presents research results from project analysis in different sectors in Germany such as the hospital and defence sector and compares it to foreign experience. It deals with the problems and constraints in the decision making and tendering process and describes the difficulties in estimating life cycle costs and risks by setting up a Public Sector Comparator.