Principle #1: Private-Public Partnership Communication - The Partnership must be founded upon a win-win agreement.
There must be a positive benefit for both parties. It must be energizing, productive, enjoyable, and should enhance the results which could be achieved by only one of the parties. There must be a spirit of cooperation. The success of one party cannot be at the expense of the other. Outsourcing or privatization are truly partnerships. It is rare that there is not some government involvement in the newly privatized service or property. These are true partnerships in both the legal and philosophical sense. Privatization does not mean close your eyes. There must be a method of accountability in every good partnership. You cannot communicate your way out of a poorly thought out relationship.
In the frenzy to privatize and the frenzy of many of the private sector businesses to grow, there have been many disasters. Many of the agreements were poorly thought through, resulting in legal challenges. Many were one sided.
The bedrock of good communication in the privatization process is found in the communication of the R.F.P. It must clearly outline the process, including the bidding requirement, the qualification, criteria, the time line, the final evaluation procedure and a detail description of the service or property being privatized. Some privatization initiatives get off track because of poorly communicated R.F.P.s and in some cases the R.F.P. is never successfully completed. The R.F.P. must be structured in such a manner as to meet all legal requirements including federal, state, county and local. There is also the need to create in both the R.F.P. process and in the ultimate agreement, flexibility. How these flexibility's are stated and communicated will have a lasting effect on the success of the partnership.
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