CBS Public-Private Platform at Folkemødet 2013

Should the public be more private? This was the important question at CBS Public-Private Platform, the Confederation of Danish Industry and the Danish Competition and Consumer Authority’s event at this year’s Folkemødet where people gathered to either confirm or deny myths about public-private partnerships.

The CBS Public-Private Platform participated during the entire Folkemødet with the aim of network and knowledge sharing. Many interesting events took place, and during debates such as “presentation of the new Productivity Committee report” and “ How do we modernize the public sector” public-private relations were brought into the discussions.
Saturday June 15 our own event took place at Klostergården in Allinge where a panel discussed the following four myths:

- Businesses don’t care about the quality—they just want to generate money
- It is not safe to leave the responsibility of welfare tasks to businesses as they can face corporate insolvency from one day to another
- The local government employees  get poorer working conditions when they shift to private businesses
- Businesses give up applying for public tasks as they feel the profit is diminished by bureaucracy

The audience had been given red and green cards to express pro and cons about their attitude toward whether the public should be more private. As the pictures below indicate, the audience first seemed very reluctant voting “no” but in the end of the debate a more positive position toward public-private partnerships emerged

TV2’s political editor Henrik Qvortrup moderated the panel which consisted of  Anker Boye, Mayer in Odense Municipality, Line Nørbæk, Chief of Sector in Danish Competition and Consumer Authority and Mette Rose Skaksen, Director of DI Service.