Public Private Partnerships can offer the best of both worlds. The bad news? They frequently don't. A report in Public Money & Management (June) finds that all too often the public sector “merely provides cover for the pursuit of private interest incompatible with the public interest”.

The increasing involvement of the private sector in national infrastructure has made it harder for governments to uphold public sector values.

“Private ownership has profit as its primary motive,” says Joop Koppenjan, associate professor at Delft University of Technology. “Yet many public values ... seem to conflict with this goal.”

So how can governments safeguard public sector values? With some difficulty, according to Douglas N. Jones, writing in the same issue. The best they can aim for is a “workable (imperfect) mix”.

Sorry record on patient notes

Over a million patients a year are seen by NHS clinicians who have not been privy to their medical records

BACKGROUND

• Profit before public interest

• Driven to sustain improvement

• A poor report for inspections

Related Internet Links

• Public sector jobs

• Snakes & Ladders

Performance management in the public sector is pretty imperfect, according to Public Servant (June). It reports that public sector bodies are drowning in data gathered through performance management procedures. The problem is that they're not doing much with the information they receive.

Feedback from 1,000 public service managers found that most systems ticked the boxes for regulators but did little to find solutions to really improve their services. Almost 70 per cent of managers admitted juggling performance data to meet targets.

Public sector bodies that don't make use of their performance data are “missing out on a great opportunity to intelligently assess and refine their operations”, says Bernard Marr, the report's author.

Waiting lists are growing

Everyone hates long queues, but when you're waiting to get your passport stamped, spare a thought for the four million people waiting for a council or housing association property. In two years' time it could be five million people (equivalent to two million households), says the Local Government Association (LGA) in Public Finance (May 23).

The LGA is calling for a reform of finance rules so that councils can remortgage their assets to fund housebuilding. It also wants councils to be able to borrow on the open market as housing associations do so that they can increase the stock of social homes.

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