Purpose – This paper aims to examine empirically whether the system of public expenditure reporting is capable of delivering financial accountability, focusing on the UK government's use of private finance for roads. Design/methodology/approach – Publicly available documents from the public...

Purpose – This paper aims to examine empirically whether the system of public expenditure reporting is capable of delivering financial accountability, focusing on the UK government's use of private finance for roads. Design/methodology/approach – Publicly available documents from the public...

Governments increasingly use private finance to fund roads infrastructure. In particular the European Commission has promoted the use of public private partnerships (PPPs) to deliver the projects forming the trans-European Network. This use of private finance raises important questions about how...

In 1993, the British government turned to the private sector to finance much needed investment in public infrastructure and manage services under its Public Private Partnerships (PPP) policy (Edwards et al., 2004), with transport forming by far the largest component by value of the PPP...