The Portsmouth Society - News
| News | PFI for Roads Rebuilding and Maintenance | |
| Earlier news | We have known for more than a year of the proposal urged on the Council
by the Government for a Private Finance Initiative (PFI) whereby a contractor,
in this case a Special Purpose Vehicle company branded Ensign Highways
Limited owned jointly by Colas Limited and Colas S.A., the French parent
company, contracts to rebuild, repair and maintain the entire road network
of the city. It is a 'fence to fence' responsibility which means that the
contractors will be responsible for street cleaning, gully emptying, grounds
maintenance, tree works, traffic signal maintenance and on-site traffic
management. After much discussion behind closed doors, the scheme was brought
to the Council on July 27 and approved. Quite apart from the question of
whether this was good value for money, we were worried from the start about
the loss of accountability and control implied in the scheme. PFI Exposed A BBC Radio 4 programme File on Four on July 6 gave details of PFI schemes for hospitals, schools etc. around the country which were proving immensely profitable for contractors and of doubtful benefit to the public PFI contracts were being sold on with the profit usually accruing to the private sector financiers. We wrote a letter expressing our concerns which was delivered to all councillors before the meeting. Part of the briefing given to the councillors was in 'exempt ' documents which the public were not allowed to see and our representatives were excluded from the Council meeting and from that of the Executive which preceded it. The Alternatives What we were never able to establish was whether the case was ever argued for what was perceived to be the advantage of the PFI over the obvious alternative of borrowing piecemeal as the need arose: if a particular road needed to be rebuilt, then borrow whatever its cost would be. In our letter to councillors, we said that in our research we had ascertained from the Treasury that the Local Government Act 2003 had relaxed the restrictions on councils' borrowing by enabling them to raise finance from the Public Works Loan Board. Councils can in fact borrow much more cheaply than private sector contractors can. What disconcerts us is that the PFI arrangement puts the management of the road system largely outside the control of the city engineer and so out of the control of the council - for twenty five years! However the briefing document says that it has been possible to preserve some degree of influence for Members and officers over the programming of works and the allocation of funds "but the direct influence on day to day programmes is not as great as previously. In recent years the council has been allocated £800,000 per year for roads maintenance through the Local Transport Plan. In fact the money has not been spent for that but allocated to what have been seen as claims of higher priority, mainly in the province of Social Services and Education. RJ |