Private Finance Initiative and Public Private Partnerships – What Future for Public Services? Examines the origins of PFI/PPPs, the their claimed rationale and 25 reasons to oppose PFI/PPP projects which include:
Reconfiguring services – PFI/PPP affects all staff and services
PFI/PPPs are often more expensive than publicly financed projects
Escalating project costs
Whose value for money?
PFI projects commit future governments to a stream of payments
Affordability gap – cuts in other services
PFI is subsidised by government
High transaction costs
Public sector comparator flawed
Privatising the development process: selling land and assets
Transforming the funding of capital expenditure
Changing nature of risk
Lack of democratic accountability
Service failures
Public sector lose control over assets and services
Private sector dictating social and public needs
Two tier workforce transforming the labour process
Includes extracts from Public Services or Corporate Welfare: Rethinking the Nation State in the Global Economy by Dexter Whitfield (Pluto Press, 2001).