www.nce.co.uk1 19.11.09NEWCIVILENGINEER3
CONTENTS 19.11.09
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05
NEWS
Room hire row
ICE Taises room biTe rates for associated society meetings at Great George Street
21
PLANT
Tailormadefortrack
N etwork Rail wants the plant sector to design road-rail vehicles specifically for the rail industry.
41
PROJEO REPORT
GreaterManchester waste
The private financed scheme that will revolutionise the treatment of Greater Manchester's waste.
Aisein this issue
16 Letters
Transport, environment, low carbon, water
06 News
Contractors forecast grim ZO10
08 News
fl.6bn to axe Crossrail
18 Coverstory
Amey chief executive rides the recession
10 Newslocus
Sir Terry Farrell on high speed rail
Comment
AntonyOliver
53 ICENews
Insurers highlight cost of climate change
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UK f130 1 [UR El80 1 ROW f200
"To write off the PFI as part
of the on-goingsolutionto public infrastrudure is clearly ridiculous"
Regardless oftheeledion,privatefinancingisvital
Shadow chancellor George Osborne's
suggestion that the private finance initiative is
"flawed and must be replaced" is baffling.
Because whatever administration that follows next Springs General Election, the massive shortfall in public finances will be top of the list of problems to salve.
To therefore write off the PFI as part of the on-going solution to public infIastructure and service provision is therefore clearly ridiculous.
Osborne suggests that rus team is bard at work finding new public sector funding models that will provide better value for taxpayers cash and that will more effectively and transpar- ently transfer risk frOIDthe public sector.
Which is a great aspiration, of course, and one that every taxpayer would commend - demand - frOIDthe govemment. And it is why there have been so many investigations, reports and recommendations by the National Audit Office (NAO) and select committees over the yeaTSinto the 600 plus schemes now on the go.
What Osborne seems to have missed is the
fart that these investigations have increasingly been giving PFI the rhumbs up.
ln short Osborne fails to recognise the huge evolution that PFI bas been through since New Labour inherited and expanded the policy initiated by John Major's Conservative administration and he fails to recognise the massive amounts of investment that bas flowed into the public sector as a result.
So to suggest that the current model is still
"heads the contractor wins, rails the taxpayer loses" is plainly nonsense. while certainly there have been a number of schemes which failed to delivervalue for public money over the yeaTs,the NAO latest findings suggest thatwe are now seeing quite the opposite.
For example, the Building Schools for the Future programme is helping local authorities to plan and procure strategically and so spend cash better. Big deals such as the Highways Agency's MZ5widening continue to leam frOID past experiences with terms now included that allow the Agency to claw back huge amounts of
benefit frOIDpost-construction refinancing.
And local authorities, which now outsource a range of service such highway maintenance, transport, street lighting and waste, are increas- ingly satisfied with the outcomes of the deals.
This is underlined by Amey chief executive Mel Ewell in NCE this week, who states that bringing projects through "using private sector skills and private sector finance" will be vital regardless of the General Election outcome.
Fortunately Osborne does still accept that private sector involvement will be vital to the delivery of public assets in the future. But to suggest thatwith a wave ofhis newTorywand he will discover "new ways to leverage private sector investment" as he purs it is doubtful.
So rather than dismantling a process that isn't broken, we should continue to encourage innovation by demanding clients and creative privatesectorpartners- partnershipsthat will
continue to push clown the cost of public procurement and delivery.
