Risk management of construction public private partnership projects

Li, B (2003) Risk management of construction public private partnership projects. PhD thesis, Glasgow Caledonian University, UK.

Abstract

The Public Private Partnership (PPP) has developed as an important procurement method for delivering public services in both developed and developing countries. PPPs could be classified as service contract partnerships, leasing contracts, public private joint ventures, concession contracts, and privatisation. In the construction industry, the most important and popular approach is concession contracting, such as Build Operate Transfer (BOT) and Private Finance Initiative (PFI), where the private contractor is responsible for designing, building, financing and operating a public facility. In the UK, the PFI accounted for over 11% of total public capital expenditure in 2002. In developing countries, a total of US$ 496. 2 billion PPP infrastructural projects were undertaken between 1990 and 1998. However, PPP still remains a difficult subject and is much debated. Factor analysis produced principal factors for PPP attributes: PPP attractiveness and negative factors, critical factors in adopting PPP, and measures to enhance PPP project value for money (VFM), and critical success factors (CSFs) for construction PPP projects. For example, the four principal factors that make PPP construction projects attractive are project technology and economy improvement, benefit to the public, government avoidance of regulation constraints and government savings in transaction costs; while the four principal factors that enhance PPP project VFM are cost saving, sustainability, risk transfer and public effective procurement. Risk criticality analysis showed that the critical risk groupings that have an impact on PPP projects at macro level are legal and economic, and that at meso level they are design, construction and operation. The study supports the assertion that the principal rule that should guide PPP project risk allocation is that risks are allocated to the party who is best able to manage it; and, consequently, that the public sector retains most risks involving site availability and political risk grouping, and the private sector bears most risks of a meso level nature. Risk retention and risk transfer are the two most frequently used risk treatments for a PPP project, with risk retention applied to less critical risks and risk transfer to more critical risks. The risk management framework developed consists of nine tasks based on the Office of Government Commerce (OGC) 6 Gateways for PFI projects. These are establishment of risk management strategy, identification of risk factors, assessment of risk criticality, establishment of risk matrix, risk negotiation, update of risk assessment, risk allocation, risk treatment and risk monitoring and report. The important areas that require special attention in the management of PPP projects are risk assessment, risk allocation and risk treatment.

Item Type: Thesis (Doctoral)
Uncontrolled Keywords: UK; capital expenditure; commerce; concession; developing countries; factor analysis; financing; government; monitoring; negotiation; partnership; private finance initiative; private sector; privatisation; procurement method; public sector; regulation; risk assessment; risk management; sustainability; value for money
Index terms: construction industry, risk allocation, transaction cost, negotiation, cost saving, public services, infrastructural project, leasing, factor analysis, value-for-money, risk factor, developing country, regulation, commerce, public private partnership, critical factor, joint venture, private sector, public sector, monitoring, risk management, private finance initiative, savings, privatization, procurement method, risk retention, concession contract, build-operate-transfer, strategy, risk assessment, partnership, critical success factor, capital expenditure, construction project, financing
Subjects: statistical analysis, administrative law, management, business, evaluation, production management, financial risk, contract type, economics, development economics, risk assessment, environmental hazards, partnership management, financial analysis, conflict resolution, contractual arrangements, asset management, control systems, economic analysis, industry analysis, infrastructure engineering, political science, land economics
Topics: Urban Studies, Sustainability, Legal Issues, Research Practice, Site Management, Cost Management, International Construction, Project Management, Risk Management, Business Strategy, Value Management, Engineering Principles, Governance, Stakeholder Management, Procurement
Descriptive scope: 4 PCTA

N.B. Descriptive scope is a count of how many of the five facets of empirical research are indicated by the words used in title, abstract and keywords. It is not intended as a judgement on the research; merely a count of the kind of word we would expect to indicate Phenomenon, Concepts, Theoretical framing, Empirical techniques, Analytical techniques. If all five are present, then a code of “5 PCTEA” will indicate this. If you feel the coding for this record is questionable, we welcome discussion around the terms we matched or the way we categorized them. The facet you would expect may not be coded, or a facet may be coded inappropriately. This can also bear on a larger question, of which facets should be treated as defining in construction management research. Please get in touch, and we will look at it. More details here