Staggering of PFI prisons raises work slowdown fears

Bidding for the government's £1bn PFI prisons programme will be staggered over the next three years, according to the Ministry of Justice (MoJ), raising concerns the prison building programme is facing a slowdown.

The first two schemes, at Beam Park West in Dagenham, Essex and at Runwell in Kent, are expected to be let later this year, with construction work starting by 2011, subject to planning approvals.

The other three schemes will be tendered sometime before the end of 2012, according to the MoJ. Sites for three schemes have yet to be identified and the search for sites will not start until the first two PFI schemes are advertised.

An MoJ spokesman said: "For the next three years the private and third sector, and consortia thereof, will be invited to bid for the construction and operation of (the) new prisons."

He added: "The priority is to start the first two prisons where we have identified sites. We will then be recommencing site searches for the remaining three."

However, one leading prisons contractor said: "I don't trust anything they say. Making it PFI means nothing will happen for at least two years. And now they say they won't even look at the other three until they have let the first two."

However the MoJ insisted it was still committed to its target of boosting prison places to 96,000 by 2014. The five new prisons, worth around £200m each will house 1,500 inmates each.

The MoJ is also working on ways to speed up the procurement of the five PFI prisons. The move was prompted by criticism from the Office of Government Commerce (OGC) last year about the lengthy procurement of the privately financed Maghull and Belmarsh West prisons, which were let in 2007 and have yet to close.