A Local-State Government Spatial Data Sharing Partnership

Chapter 3 – Collaboration, Partnerships and the Government Environment
2. an established procedure for managing the partnership exists, usually in the form
of a written contract; and
3. there is an agreed economic development outcome expected by all parties.
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(Walzer & York 1998, p. 49)
The sharing of risk and benefits also enable governments to fund projects such as bridges,
freeways, airports and tunnels with the assistance of the private sector, hence reducing the
upfront cost (Webb & Pulle 2002). The majority of PPPs in Australia currently exist
between the state government and private companies rather than the national or local
governments. As many of these partnership endeavours are relatively immature, it has
been difficult to gauge their success, and the perspectives of success from the public sector
can be quite different from the private sector. Increasingly, methods of evaluation should
not only incorporate both public and private partners, but also the community stakeholders
who are usually the key users of the PPP outcome (Lichfield 1998).
Government to Government Partnerships (G2G)
Around the world the use of partnerships within and across governments are prolific, and
include the sharing of facilities, sharing of information, joint delivery of services, e-
business and e-governments services, environmental management, planning, and
infrastructure development. In the United Kingdom, the government has encouraged
partnerships to improve efficiencies and intergovernmental relations between the central
and local governments. For example, the Central and Local Government Information
Partnership was set up to enable central and local government to work together to develop
efficient and effective non-financial statistical information (CLIP 2005). The
Leicestershire E-Government Partnership was established by nine local authorities in
Leicestershire to deliver e-government services such as planning, GIS, tourism information
and a youth portal (Leicestershire County Council 2006).
In Canada, Infrastructure Canada coordinates federal efforts on cities and communities and
supports infrastructure investments across the country, through partnerships that meet local
community needs (Infrastructure Canada 2006). In Australia, many of the state
government agencies have established partnership strategies both across state government
agencies and between state and local government. Examples of these include:
• Government of Western Australia State-Local Government Partnership
Agreement;
• South Australian Government State-Local Government Relations Agreement;