Public-Private Partnerships in Public Services - SPY00146M

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Module summary

The delivery of many public services involves a partnership between the public and the private or voluntary sector, which creates both opportunities and challenges. The module unpacks these, and equips students with the knowledge and skills for a critical evaluation of public-private partnerships in their many guises.

Module will run

Occurrence	Teaching period
A	Online Teaching Period 4 2025-26

Module aims

This module introduces students to the distinction between the private and the public sector, and outlines the shifting relationship between these two sectors, from the bureaucratic paradigm of traditional public administration to the emergence of New Public Management and related public sector reform paradigms. It explores the development of public service markets both in theory and practice, including an analysis of performance management and outsourcing, and provides students with a critical understanding of the different facets of Public-Private-Partnerships in public service delivery today.

This combination of historical, theoretical and practical study materials in the module enables students to contextualise and analyse critically any public service that is delivered with involvement of a private provider, in order to identify the benefits and limits of a given Public-Private-Partnership.

Module learning outcomes

By the end of this module, students should be able to:

• identify differences and similarities between the public and the private sector.

• explain the nature and impact of New Public Management (and related reform paradigms), including its implications for the structure and values of public services, in comparison to public administration in its traditional ‘bureaucratic’ form.

• understand the influence of private sector approaches in public management, and their consequences for public management in practice. 

• critically analyse the functioning of public service markets

• distinguish between accountability via markets and via political systems, including the different nature of relationships between citizens and the state.

• analyse and evaluate their own organisational experiences in relation to the ground covered by the module.

Indicative assessment

Task	% of module mark
Assignment - York Online Programmes	100.0

Special assessment rules

None

Indicative reassessment

None

Module feedback

Feedback on summative assessments will be provided within 20 working days, consisting of written comments and a marking matrix.

Indicative reading

Kekez, A., Howlett, M. and Ramesh, M. (2019). Collaboration in Public Service Delivery. Promise and Pitfalls. Edward Elgar.

Klijn, E.H. and Koppenjan, J. (2015). Governance Networks in the Public Sector. Routledge