Document 1316

Scottish Parliament: Motions and Amendments: 2003 S1M-3810

Author(s): Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body

Copyright holder(s): Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body: © Scottish Parliamentary copyright material is reproduced with the permission of the Queen's Printer for Scotland on behalf of the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body.

S1M-3810 Christine Grahame (South of Scotland) (SNP) : Private Finance Initiative— That the Parliament notes the recent findings of the Audit Commission report into Private Finance Initiative (PFI) in schools in England which compared 17 of 25 PFI schools with 12 traditionally funded schools and, in particular, notes that (a) the quality of school buildings built via more traditional means was, on average, better than early PFI schools, (b) there was criticism by users of design aspects such as classroom lay-out and size, (c) there was no clear-cut difference between traditional and PFI schools on unit costs, (d) there were particular concerns regarding risk allocation, for example vandalism was not a risk transferred to the provider although risk management was often the key factor in tipping the balance in favour of PFI, (e) if there was a major problem with a school building the bottom line was that the local authority, bearing statutory responsibility for education provision, had to step in if the PFI provider failed to respond, (f) the report found no evidence that PFI schemes delivered schools more quickly than more traditional methods and (g) the report recommended a choice of procurement options; therefore challenges the statements by the Minister for Finance and Public Services in his letter to me on 20 January 2003 that "the classic Public Private Partnership (PPP) model has been tried and tested by authorities in the market and has shown that it can attract competitive and efficient bids and deliver good outputs" and that PPP will deliver "real improvements to our school estate quickly and effectively", and calls upon the Scottish Executive to halt the PFI/PPP programme in the light of this and other critical reports.

Supported by: Mr Michael Matheson, Mr Alex Neil, Tommy Sheridan, Mr Stewart Stevenson, Mr Gil Paterson, Ms Sandra White, Mr Andrew Wilson

Lodged on 27 January 2003; not current as of 31 March 2003

Information about Document 1316

Scottish Parliament: Motions and Amendments: 2003 S1M-3810