Creating profits in the public sphere

The scope of the PFI is to be widened to encourage Government departments and agencies to make better use of their assets by engaging in commercial services.

A new policy and guidance note from the Treasury's Enterprise and Growth Unit, Selling Government Services into Wider Markets, says the new policy will apply to both physical assets such as equipment, land and premises and non-physical assets including intellectual property, data and skills.

Some projects will be undertaken by the departments or agencies themselves, but larger and more complex ones would involve public/private sector partnerships where the public sector retains its assets and any new revenue streams generated.

Robinson said: "The aim is to take under-utilised public sector assets and invite the private sector in to boost usage or develop those assets under a public private partnership."

Adrian Montague, chief executive of the Treasury Task Force, commented: "It's about 'sweating the assets', about getting value for money for assets the Government has on its books. A lot of these might involve intellectual property that could have a commercial use, but for which there has been no incentive until now to exploit."

For example, the Defence Evaluation and Research Agency is looking at selling land around its sites at Malvern and Farnborough to small business to which it will sell licences to commercially exploit some of its patents and intellectual properties.

Other possible projects include the Forestry Holidays Project, where the Forestry Commission is seeking a private sector partner to help develop the holiday potential of its forests and the DTI's Radio Communications Agency also has a scheme to link up with an IT firm.

Montague added that he did not expect the number of these kind of projects to be large and said he expected most would revolve around making better use of property assets.