Nearly thirty years after John Major’s government introduced the Private Finance Initiative (PFI), it is astonishing that we are still writing about and using this failed model of delivering public services.
Today, we are reminded by Audit Scotland, yet again, of the costs of using this model. It has been modified and rebranded many times over the years. In Scotland, the SNP government calls it Non-Profit Distributing (NPD) and the Hub Initiative, but these all come under the broad heading of Public Private Partnerships (PPP). In May last year, they announced another rebranding with the Mutual Investment Model (MIM). Another PPP scheme with many of the same problems, as is well covered in a recent Common Weal report.
I and others have written thousands of words on why this model doesn’t work. This archive page on the UNISON Scotland website covers many of my earlier publications. It reminds me that I even used to write a regular briefing called ‘PFI Illusion’. I have to say I didn't expect to be making the same points all these years later. Most recently, in Stockholm a couple of weeks ago.
I first became interested in PPP as a union organiser covering Lanarkshire Health Board in the 1990s. Two of the three acute hospitals were to be financed by PFI, and I recall a meeting with Lanarkshire MPs explaining why this was a bad idea. Particularly to John Smith MP, who as the MP for Monklands was likely to be the loser because his hospital didn’t have ring-fenced PFI funding.
The fact that PPP schemes are more expensive is not disputed as it once was. As today’s report reminds us even the SFT accepts this:
“The SFT calculated in April 2019 that the lifetime costs (construction cost, ongoing maintenance, plus repayment of borrowing) of NPD and hub private finance projects signed under the pipeline approach were on average about 2.9 times the construction cost of the assets. This compares with lifetime costs of 1.5 times the construction cost when using capital grants and between 1.9 and 2.6 times the construction cost when using public sector borrowing.”
The costs are higher than this as the Audit Scotland report also confirms: "The Scottish public sector is contracted to pay a total of £40.1 billion in annual payments between 1998/99 and 2047/48 under current PFI, NPD and hub privately financed contracts. This is over four times the capital value of the assets developed”
There are also plenty of other risks and problems associated with PPP schemes as the Edinburgh Sick Kids Hospital, and the collapse of Carillion has highlighted. As today's report also concedes projects that involve technology, legislation changes or complex service delivery are unlikely to be suitable. In practice, very few public services remain static for the 25-40 years of a typical PPP project.
The report also points to the reason governments of all colours have persisted. Devolved administrations have always had limited borrowing powers and therefore keeping borrowing off the public balance sheet is attractive. Few Scottish Government ministers in the early years of devolution thought PFI was a good idea, but it was in the parlance of the time, 'the only game in town'. The Scottish Government now has much higher borrowing powers, which is why it uses PP less, but still insufficient for its capital programme. Hence the new MIM scheme, which they hope will keep these new schemes off-balance sheet.
Even the Tories have given up on PFI, not least because they can borrow very cheaply and they recognised that the projects were not delivering value for money. The solution for Scotland to go the same way is to give the Scottish Government prudential borrowing powers, ending the current limits. That would end the chase for off-balance-sheet financing and invest the savings in our crumbling infrastructure.
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