Value for Money Assessment Approaches in Public-private-partnerships: A Systematic Literature Review

Value for Money (VfM), a major criterion for assessing Public Private Partnerships (PPPs), has created debate among researchers as to whether PPPs offer more opportunities as opposed to traditional methods in the delivery and operation of public infrastructure projects. PPP is an effective procurement method for delivery of infrastructure projects worldwide, however, their ability to provide taxpayers, users, and society with VfM remain controversial. While studies on VfM assessment in PPP arrangement exist, there is limited literature that comprehensively evaluates the VfM assessment approaches. Therefore, this study aims to conduct a systematic review on VfM assessment approaches in PPP infrastructure projects. A five-step PRISMA approach was used to search, select, and analyse twenty-eight relevant articles. The findings revealed that cost benefit analysis, competitive bidding method, outline business case and public sector comparator are the main methods used to assess VfM in PPPs. Prevailing VfM techniques such as the public sector comparator, tend to focus on achieving cost saving rather than value itself. As a result, the public sector has struggled to ensure and deliver VfM, leading to the combined use of the public sector comparator and cost-benefit analysis in developed countries. In addition, it was noted that, governments have created country specific and project specific frameworks to guide VfM assessment process in PPP infrastructure projects. Although the research used 29 articles, the results reveal significant gaps for further research in PPP infrastructure projects.