The pros and cons of the PFI investment bank

The private sector is not prepared to let sleeping dogs lie where the new PFI investment bank is concerned. After plans to set up a public-private bank to fund PFI were leaked, there followed ripples of disapproval.

Those ripples now show signs of becoming a veritable tidal wave following a failed briefing by the banks' backers at the Confederation of British Industry. It remains to be seen whether an eleventh hour meeting with the Major Contractors Group can get the show back on the road in time for the planned launch later today.

However, it is difficult to see where all the opposition is leading. The plan may be delayed, but can it be stopped? Indeed, should it be stopped?

The complaint that the make up of the Bank may offend EU competition rules sounds more like a tactic than a concern. The fact that noses have been put out of joint by the secretive way the plans have been drawn up also says more about the means the Government has used, than the end it is trying to achieve.

A PFI bank could make public sector expertise available wherever projects occur. Presently, that expertise is either absent, or has been built up in departments where spending is in decline, such as prisons and PFI.

Getting those skills into the right place will benefit everyone - Government, taxpayer and PFI players - and speed the delivery of much-needed services.

For this reason, we need a chance to judge the idea of a bank objectively on its merits, rather than have it dragged down by vested interests, many of whom are not yet clear themselves exactly what they are opposing.

The devil may be in the detail. But sometimes it is worth looking the devil - if that's what it is - in the eye.