Britain was in the forefront of utilising Public-Private Partnerships (PPP) and contracting out from the 1980s. The British experience of increasing disenchantment with private finance and outsourcing in recent years is therefore of considerable interest. Private contractors have not proved...

This paper examines the UK experience of PPP/PFI from a value for money perspective. It argues that a rounded view of overall performance has to consider the procurement process, the construction of the asset procured, and the operational performance that follows. Important changes have been...

Public-private partnerships (PPPs) are long-term partnerships between the public and private sectors that usually involve the private sector undertaking investment projects that traditionally have been executed (or at least financed) and owned by the public sector. This paper considers...

The UK National Audit Office (NAO) scrutinises public spending on behalf of Parliament, helping it to hold government departments to account and helping public bodies improve performance and delivery. We publish around 60 value for money studies each year across a range of government activities,...

This study was prepared by Nadine Fabritz while she was working at the Ifo Institute for Economic Research in the Department for Human Capital and Innovation. It was completed in June 2014 and accepted as a doctoral thesis by the Department of Economics at the University of Munich in October...

This report is a comparative study of the current legal situation in relation to the forth-coming implementation of the Floods Directive in selected EU Member States, focusing on the question of whether these states incorporate public participation into the process of flood risk mapping and, if...

Since every Safety Management System (SMS) is intended to provide a framework by which an organisation manages risk, it is inevitable that accident investigators will take a close interest. The good investigator will always want to understand how the SMS was intended to control risk and how this...

Many companies in USA and Western Europe are taking advantage of developments in information technology and outsourcing parts of the accounting process to vendors in other parts of the world. Offshore outsourcing of accounting presents some unique risks, control problems and challenges. In this...