Paper/Speech Details of Conference Program for the 31st NISPAcee Annual Conference Program Overview WG6: Evidence-Based Public Policy Making Author(s) Primoz Pevcin University of Ljubljana Ljubljana Slovenia Veronika Petkovšek, University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Public Administration, SloveniaNevenka Hrovatin, University of Ljubljana, School of Economics and Business, SloveniaPrimož Pevcin, University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Public Administration, Slovenia Title REMUNICIPALIZATION AS THE (UNINTENDED) OUTCOME OF LEGAL TRANSITION: ANALYSING THE PERSPECTIVE OF PRINCIPALS File Paper files are available only for conference participants, please login first. Presenter Primoz Pevcin Abstract The starting point of the analysis is a legal change that happened with the introduction of the Public-private Partnership Act (PPPA) in Slovenia. The introduction of the law envisaged changes to the organization and delivery of local public services, where transition provisions focusing on phase-in and grandfathering were stipulated. This legal transition affected the decision-making of stakeholders being involved, either principals (state, municipalities) or agents (service providers). The paper proposal at hand focuses on presenting the evidence on the outcomes of legal change in the water industry as a local public utility, where the analysis is based on the primary data collection via a self-prepared structured on-line questionnaire, sent to Slovenian municipalities as principals. The results obtained suggest that legal amendments have promoted a trend towards remunicipalization in the water industry, as the implementation of PPPA contributed to increased full public ownership in local public utility services provision. The most important motives for increasing full public ownership are management problems in a mixed-ownership enterprise, closely followed by simpler regulation on the part of the service provider, greater control over the service provider, more opportunities to influence business activities, and greater rationality and efficiency of business activities if we follow the answers of responding municipalities. Besides, the legal transition also increased the municipal ownership of public infrastructure. In the majority of cases the relationship between the infrastructure owner (municipality) and the infrastructure manager (public utility provider) has been settled with the transfer of public infrastructure into the business lease of the public utility provider. The motivating factors for and advantages of increased public ownership detected in our research present the benefits of remunicipalization, such as greater control over the provider and greater rationality and efficiency of business, better co-operation between the enterprise and the local community, developing expertise and increasing the quality of the services provision, better organization of work, faster job performance, lower costs of service provision, etc., although the respondents acknowledged potential disadvantages, such as the issues related to proper arranging concession relationship, lack of experience of the municipalities in providing control over the concessions and regulatory price policy.
