Today the National Audit Office (NAO), the body that monitors Government spending and evaluates if the money has been well spent, has published a report on PFI (Private Finance Initiative) funding (embedded at the end of this article, for your convenience).
The ruling Conservative party at the Isle of Wight council are very keen for the maintenance of Island roads to be placed under a 25-year PFI scheme.
Rosa Prince, political correspondent at The Telegraph, describes the NAO publication as, “a scathing report”, where, “the spending watchdog warned the Government that PFI deals were no longer suitable for funding future projects given the spiralling costs of repaying bills over many decades.”
£121.4 billion owing on public projects worth £52.9 billion
She highlights the major problem being that UK taxpayers owe, “a total of £121.4 billion on public projects which are worth only £52.9 billion.”
The length of time that the projects run, and therefore how long they have taken to pay for is touched on, where she says, “large debts were stored up for future taxpayers – which now have to be repaid.”
Lord Oakeshott: “a millstone”
Near the end of the article there are quotes from Lord Oakeshott, a Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesman, “PFI contracts will be a millstone around taxpayers’ necks for most of our lifetimes, at least the next quarter century.”
He concludes, “They didn’t just sell the family silver, they paid the banks to take it away by handing them blank cheques in the form of guaranteed long term contracts we can’t afford for school maintenance and hospital services.”
Thanks to lido for the pointer to this story.
NAO Report: Lessons from PFI and other projects(Did you know? – You can view the document below at full-screen simply by clicking on the left-most graphic, to the right of the Scribd word, on the grey bar at the bottom of each document.)
