Private sector consultants have increasingly been called upon to assist aid-dependent countries in strengthening their public sector governance systems. This paper argues that the role of these consultants in shaping the reform process is not well understood. This paper offers a conceptual...

This paper examines the Motability scheme which enables disabled people to obtain cars on a leasing basis in the UK. The scheme is centred around Motability, a charity, which has an arms-length relationship with a government department, and a close relationship with a non-profit making private...

This paper reviews the promotion of the Private Finance Initiative (PFI) in the social housing sector in England to illustrate that public policy transfer to new sectors of the public services may be problematic. The first 'PFI pathfinder' schemes in housing were initiated in 1999, but most of...

Most of the literature devoted to analysing public–private partnership (PPP) contracts focuses on issues related to competition. This article intends to study a less frequently considered matter, the financial clauses of these contracts as steering tools of the PPP.

This research locates the use of public private partnerships (PPP) within the new public management (NPM) reforms that have swept the Australian public sector. Empirical evidence from policy documents and a case study of a failed public hospital project in Victoria are used to illustrate...

This paper considers the relationships between public and private organisations entering into public–private partnerships within the context of NPM. After offering a brief discussion of similarities and differences between public and private organisations and their relationships, it...

Using a neo-institutional lens, this paper analyses the formation and evolution of the procedures, norms and conventions – both official and unofficial – of the French approach to managing sport. In the 1960s and 1970s, a centralising model for the public service was hegemonic,...

Public–private partnerships involve organisations from the public and private sectors working together to provide public services. This introductory issue of the International Journal of Public Policy comprises two papers that consider PPP at the theoretical level, and seven papers that...