PFI complex and costly - £216bn and rising

PFI’s problem is that its principles and rationale are too complex to explain in simple English….and hence it has failed to stir up popular passion.

That’s the view of Sunday Times columnist Joan McAlpine who calculates that changes in accountancy rules in April will put PFI costs on the government’s balance sheet for the first time.

McAlpine reckons that the UK’s total PFI cost figure runs to £216bn.

She thinks future costs are set to roar ahead and draws on research by Mark Hellowell, based at Edinburgh University’s Centre for International Public Health Policy.

She tells Scottish readers that Scotland had spent £5.2bn as at October 2007 - but the cost of paying for these over time will run to £22bn.

This translates into £4,500 for every person in Scotland, says McAlpine. She notes: “This is proportionately much higher than elsewhere in the Britain.

 “Many PFI contracts are financed by HBOS and Royal Bank of Scotland. We will soon end up in the bizarre situation of the government subsidising PFI schemes in order to guarantee returns to banks that it has previously rescued with taxpayers’ money.