Well not surprisingly, an article in the British Medical Journal by Professor Allyson Pollack and his colleagues at University College London dismissed government claims that its private finance initiative (PFI) provides a good deal.
Despite this, the government still deny that this is indeed the case. What a surprise!
They say their findings are wrong, but deny them access to vital documents that would allow them to compare and contrast. What have they got to be scared of if it is such a good idea? Despite this, the report came in with the goods and the interested parties supporting PFI's must hate them for it.
So what is a PFI?
Public Private Partnerships (PPP) are basically the private companies running public services for profit, not a sense of public concern. The Private Finance Initiative (PFI) is the most frequently used type of PPP. The key difference between PFI and public funding to provide public services, is that the public does not own the asset (hospital, school etc.). That is, whilst we pay a huge “rent”, as do their children and children's children, we the public never own what should be a our asset financed by our taxes.
These companies are usually a consortia including a building firm, a bank and a facilities management company. Even if the scheme starts in “British” hands, soon the companies sell on their interest to anyone and we have the ridicules situation where anyone with a dollar can own elements of the public services we need in the UK. How can we plan, when any Tom, Dick or Harry hold the asset?
The fact is we cannot, as we have to service the rent payments to make things attractive for the potential landlord The powers that be will concentrate services in places that are not necessarily the most appropriate place in respect of provision, but instead serve the number crunchers in government who are falling over themselves to make the investment appealing and well off the ledger to give the impression that the books balance.
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