Partnering in facilities management: An advantageous approach for public sector organisation

Managing and maintaining the built environment can account for 10% to 20% of an organisation's operational costs. With public sector expenditure reaching £550bn in 2005/06, increased pressure has been placed on organisations to promote "Best Value" practices and many universities, emergency services operators and government organisations have outsourced areas of their facilities management operations to private sector service providers in an attempt to improve resource efficiency and service effectiveness. During the last twenty years the benefits of outsourcing as a strategy have continued to be questioned and a number of issues, such as the development of adversarial relationships, have been highlighted. This has in part, led to the evolution of the "partnering" concept as applied to FM. With the culture of openness and collaboration the concept promotes, it has been seen as a way to address some of the weaknesses of outsourcing. This report aimed to establish whether partnering is an advantageous approach for public sector organisations managing their facilities. In doing so it looked firstly at whether partnering as a concept addresses the outsourcing concerns echoed by organisations, secondly whether the partnering elements are aligned to those prioritised by public sector organisations and finally how the partnering arrangement can be successfully implemented and managed to make it an advantageous approach. When answering the above questions the research has looked at how authors and public sector organisations regard outsourcing and the concept of partnering. In doing so the investigation has involved reviewing a number of articles, analysing the results from a self-administered survey, considering feedback obtained through interviews and exploring appropriate case studies. The results from each of these have been consistent and conclusive and there are two key findings established from the research. The first is that the emphasis on communication and commitment within partnering arrangements has been fundamental in addressing weaknesses of the FM outsourcing strategy, specifically the adversarial relationships that can develop. The second is through setting clear measurable objectives at the pre-contract stage and creating and maintaining the partnering culture of openness and collaboration, a mutually beneficial and advantageous relationship can be experienced by both public sector clients and FM service providers