José Manuel Alonso, a member of the Jean Monnet EUFIREG Module team, has published a research article in the journal Public Administration Review, together with Professor Rhys Andrews, from Cardiff University.
The article, titled “Can Public-Private Innovation Partnerships Improve Public Services? Evidence from a Synthetic Control Approach”, evaluates the impact of public-private collaborations in Europe, focusing on the transfer of the management of a children’s social services department in a large metropolitan government in England to an “improvement partnership” between the local government and two private firms in Sandwell municipality (UK).
Using a synthetic control method approach, the authors find little evidence of improved health or educational outcomes for looked after children during the years following the creation of partnership.
However, an increase in the costs of providing children’s social services is observed, which documentary evidence suggests may be attributable to weak contract management capacity, difficulties embedding performance monitoring and other additional expenses. Therefore, the results suggest that effective supervision of public-private innovation partnerships is essential for their success.
The journal in which the article was published, Public Administration Review, is one of the leading international journals in the field of Public Management, with an impact factor of 5.257 according to the Journal Citation Reports.
The article is available in open access at: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/puar.13514