ABSTRACT
The Oxford Dictionary defines a ‘partnership’ as a ‘joint business with shared risks and
profits’; this somewhat narrow definition is expanded in Roget’s Thesaurus which
includes as related nouns the words ‘cooperation’, ‘inclusion’ and ‘association’. While
today’s public private partnerships (PPPs) are often formed to carry out a specific
business task, as envisaged by the dictionary definition, they are just as frequently
formed to meet the wider tasks lying behind the thesaurus suggestions. Furthermore
membership of today’s PPPs is no longer restricted to the traditional central
government, local government and private sectors; the boundaries between the public
and private sectors are now very blurred and today’s partnerships involve community,
educational and health groups, many of whom receive funding from both public and
private sources.
