Private hands off public services

London Unison demonstration last yearPRIVATE FINANCE Initiative (PFI) deals have always been extremely
profitable for private contractors. But recent reports show what a bad deal
it’s been for public services such as the NHS and how much greedy private
companies use it to fill up their coffers.

Roger Shrives

Look at hospital building. The Norfolk and Norwich (N&N) Hospital was
rebuilt under the PFI. It was supposed to cost £229 million but the full price
has now been calculated at £1.16 billion over the 35 years of N&N’s contract
with private consortium Octagon Healthcare.

Stories like this have convinced the Association of Chartered Certified
Accountants (ACCA) that PFI schemes cost health trusts more than any other
former government schemes. The ACCA report looked into N&N and 12 other
hospitals.

Now the National Audit Office (NAO) want to look more closely at how many
PFI projects are being sold off between contractors, yielding huge profits.

PFI schemes worth a capital value of £32 billion are now up and running and
PFI investments worth some £700 million have been bought and sold since 1999,
mostly over the past two years. All this profit goes to the fat-cat
capitalists while the public sector – the source of these profits – gets
nothing except their old rip-off deal.

The NAO suggests some form of windfall tax on such profits. But the
government disagrees with even this minor palliative. New Labour say that PFI
is the only show in town – that there is no alternative.

Unions in the NHS and other public services must fight for the abolition of
the PFI and similar privatisation methods. We need public services fully
funded from taxation that can provide good quality care to everyone.

These new reports show that the NHS would save enormous sums of money by
ditching PFI, and ending the building contractors’ profiteering. We should
make sure that the PFI profiteers pay for the growing funding problems of the
NHS, not the patients and staff who carry the can at present.