What now for deprivations of liberty?
What will the effect of the postponement of the Liberty Protections Safeguards be on local authorities? Local Government Lawyer asked 50 adult social care lawyers for their views on the potential consequences.
SPOTLIGHT |
SPOTLIGHT |
The private finance initiative may have delivered many new hospitals and homes which might otherwise not have been delivered, but there is no clear evidence of whether PFI is any better or worse value for money than other procurement routes, MPs have said.
In a report on the use of PFI in hospitals and social housing, the influential Public Accounts Committee said that by April 2009, there were 76 operational PFI hospitals in England and more than 13,000 homes had been built or refurbished through PFI, “representing a small but significant part of investment in social housing”.
It said: “As with previous reports, we again found no clear and explicit justification and evaluation for the use of PFI in terms of its value for money. However, we accept that the then government gave the Departments (the Department of Health and the DCLG) no realistic alternatives to PFI as the procurement route to use for these capital programmes.”
The committee said its other concerns revolved around central government's failure to use the market leverage that comes from overseeing multiple contracts, and the lack of robust central data to support effective programme management.
The MPs suggested that there were cases where PFI was used where there was no evidence it was the best procurement route.
They called on the government to do more to:
The committee said it expected any procurement decisions on the housing projects whose future is now being reconsidered in the context of the Comprehensive Spending Review “to be made using clear value for money criteria”.
The report claimed that it was clear that implementation of PFI projects could be improved. “Many PFI housing procurements have taken very much longer, and cost a great deal more, than originally planned,” the MPs said. “On hospitals, most are receiving the services expected at the point contracts were signed and are generally being well managed. There are, however, wide and unexplained variations in the cost of hospital support services, such as cleaning, catering and portering.”
The report accused the government of “missing a trick” in failing to take advantage of market developments such as the bundling of projects together and making use of economies of scale.
The DH should exploit the commercial weight and buying power that comes from letting substantial contracts, the committee said, “but at present neither central government nor the local bodies benefit from this”.
A lack of good quality central data is undermining the two departments’ ability to monitor performance and drive efficiency savings, the report added.
It also claimed that the central team at the DH was “already under-resourced and unable to secure proper value for money from these contracts”, suggesting it would be a false economy to have weak central teams that are unable to implement the committee’s recommendations.
The PAC’s other conclusions and recommendations included:
A copy of the report can be downloaded here.