• What is Partnerships British Columbia (Partnerships BC)?
• What is a public-private partnership?
• Who does Partnerships BC report to?
• Why is this government making public-private partnerships a priority?
• What kinds of projects does Partnerships BC get involved with?
• What is Partnerships BC's role on projects?
• What projects is Partnerships BC currently working on?
• How does Partnerships BC deliver value?
• How can we be sure that the business partner will deliver the project?
• The government can borrow money more cheaply than the private sector, so how can these partnerships arrangements save money?

Partnerships BC brings together ministries, agencies and the private sector to develop major capital projects through public-private partnerships. Our mandate is to facilitate, and in some cases, manage, partnerships on behalf of public sector agencies.

Partnerships BC also serves as the BC government's centre of expertise for establishing policies and best practices for successful partnership projects in the province. As part of this advisory role, Partnerships BC provides planning services to public sector agencies wishing to explore innovative options for building and managing public infrastructure.

A public-private partnership is a legally binding contract between government and business for the provision of assets and the delivery of services.  The contract allocates responsibilities and business risks among the various partners.

Partnerships bring the strengths of the public sector and private sector together:   The public sector maintains accountability through out each project to ensure high quality standards are written into every contract and are adhered to throughout the life of the project.  The public sector also ensures that projects meet their objectives - providing BC residents with high quality infrastructure.

The private partner operates and manages infrastructure to ensure projects are delivered on time, on budget and to specified performance standards.

Partnerships are the best approach for some projects.  Where they are the best approach, they offer the following benefits:

• Ensuring taxpayers are protected from the responsibilities associated with building and maintaining major facilities
• Increasing the creativity or innovation brought to the project's development by engaging the private sector in a rigorous competitive selection process.
• Ensuring the public sector stays focused on delivering high quality public services that meet public policy objectives.

As a company registered under the Business Corporations Act, Partnerships BC is wholly owned by the Province of British Columbia and reports to its shareholder, the Minister of Finance.

The BC government has stated its intention to modernize government to find more efficient and effective approaches to the provision of services and infrastructure in support of health care, transportation and other priority programs in the province.

Partnerships are designed to deliver major capital projects that meet public needs at minimum life-cycle cost with an optimum sharing of responsibilities among the partners.

Partnerships BC works on projects in a number of sectors, including transportation, health and advanced education.  Projects are analyzed to see whether they can best be delivered through a partnership model.  The variables in things like the opportunities for innovation, the potential for sharing responsibilities and risks, such as construction cost and schedule, and the potential for performance-based contracts.  When a government department or Ministry decides that a partnership model is the best choice, then Partnerships BC can support and advise that department or Ministry.

Partnerships BC's involvement can include some or all of the following:

• Business case analysis to determine the best model for delivering a project
• Management of the competitive selection process, including writing and issuing requests for qualifications and requests for proposals, facilitation of fair evaluation of proposals, and final negotiations to reach a contract that meets the project objectives and delivers value to BC taxpayers
• Project and contract management throughout the life of the project.

For a comprehensive review of current projects, click here.

Partnerships BC serves its public sector clients by providing core expertise on analyzing, structuring and managing partnership contracts.  As a centre of expertise, Partnerships BC can develop and transfer learnings from one project to the next.

Agreements between the public sector and private sector partners are structured so that substantial penalties will be incurred by the private sector partner if, for example, a building is not constructed on time or within the budget, or a service is not delivered according to agreed-upon levels. Further, government retains the right to step in and take over the work done if agreements are not met, even though the private partner may have invested significant amounts of its own capital.

One potential benefit of involving a private partner in this project is the increased efficiency the private sector brings to all aspects of a project, resulting in lower costs  For partnership projects, it is important that the private partner has a significant amount of capital at risk as this enables the public sector to achieve greater cost efficiency.

With respect to marginally higher interest rates, these costs are more than offset by overall project efficiencies when the private sector is involved.

Private-sector efficiencies often include overall project management (shorter design and construction periods), innovative design and better construction and maintenance processes.