Small public private partnerships: The answer to local public and private needs, yet an ugly duckling?

Public Private Partnerships (PPP) are frequently mobilized as a purchasing form suitable for large infrastructure projects. And it is commonly assumed that transaction costs linked to the establishment of PPP make them prohibitive in small sizes. In a Danish context this has been safeguarded by the authorities, which recommend sizes over 13,5 million € (100 million DKr). PPP is here understood as Design, Build, Finance and Operate projects. The paper shows, when looking at Germany, Italy and United Kingdom, that small PPP (below 13,5 million €) are widespread in two investigated countries; United Kingdom and Italy, whereas German projects are still emerging. Quantitative material on small PPP in Italy and UK shows no lower limit in size for these established PPPs. This apparent paradox is then qualitatively investigated. Only small projects are investigated, and these seem largely to be sound businesses and represent operable units for the clients and citizens. Cases are focused within education and healthcare. The analysis suggests that another type of economy apparently is in play. It is thus characteristic within education projects in UK that the largest portion of small PPPs are of a size below  5,4 million € roughly reflecting the lower limit of obligatory tendering according to EU-law. Among these there are indeed a good portion of "real" PPPs.