Stay up to date with notifications from The Independent

Notifications can be managed in browser preferences.

PFI schemes may be pooled

Francesco Guerrera
Tuesday 02 February 1999 19:02 EST
Comments

Your support helps us to tell the story

From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.

At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.

The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.

Your support makes all the difference.

THE GOVERNMENT is considering plans to pool together different projects under the private finance initiative (PFI) in an effort to speed up the development of smaller schemes.

Under the plans, local authorities will be urged to group together projects below pounds 20m in order to make them more attractive to private investors.

In a radical departure from past PFI schemes, local councils will also be allowed to put together schemes from different sectors such as hospitals, schools and roads, offering contractors the chance to bid for regeneration work in an entire area.

At present a number of small infrastructure schemes under the PFI - the Government programme to foster private-public investment - are shunned by the private sector because their small size does not justify the high cost of bidding for a PFI contract. The chief secretary to the Treasury Alan Milburn yesterday said that smaller PFI projects needed "greater strategic planning".

In his first public pronouncement since taking over the PFI brief from the disgraced Geoffrey Robinson, Mr Milburn said: "We have hundreds of potential deals but they are pretty small scale, between pounds 5m and pounds 20m, and we need to make them more attractive."

Join our commenting forum

Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies

Comments

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in