Public-Private Partnerships and Constitutional Law: Accountability in the United Kingdom and the United States of America

Annually, the government commits significant expenditure to a type of public contracts which are known as Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) or the Private Finance Initiative (PFI). These contracts bind the public purse for decades in sectors such as Health, Defence and Detention, and involve the assignment of a significant role to the private sector in the provision of public services. This book explores the controversial subject of the public accountability of these contracts, and the corresponding large sums of public money involved. It explains how public accountability works for PPPs and the PFI, and it argues that it should be provided as part of the Economic Constitution. Drawing comparative understandings from the UK and the USA constitutional legal traditions, the book investigates public accountability from the perspective of the Economic Constitution, focusing on three accountability criteria - legal, accounting and administrative. In doing so, it provides an analysis which informs both from the perspective of academic research and from that of legal and consulting practice.