PFI you mean? I was being facetious about it's design ...

Nonetheless all too many PFI schemes need to be bailed out by the government because the contractor cannot actually do the job for what they bid (or they need to satisy greedy shareholders or they just want to squeeze as much money out of the taxpayer as possible) - see the Maperley/IR offices swind - er - contract. When supporting public services they have the government over a barrel as they either pay up or the public service ceases to exist. Much hoohah was made about the private sector taking on the financial risk but in reality, of course, the tax payer still shoulders the risk - and often at greater expense and lesser service than the public sector.

I'll ignore, for now, what happens to, say, new hospitals when the current contracts run out in 25-30 years time and the then owners (indeterminate since it may have been sold on many times by then) don't want a hospital there any more.

Posted By: BerlinCanary, Sep 29, 14:16:31