Capital investment is needed in many primary schools — the private sector is only interested in multi-million pound deals. How can PPP help?
Victoria Dock School in Hull is a new 1FE primary school which opened in January 1999. It has been built and will be operated by a local company under a PFI agreement. We want to encourage more local and regional companies to get involved in PPP deals and to ensure that all schools that want to participate are able to do so. If the private sector contractors borrow money they will be charged a much higher rate of interest than the Government and the private sector will also demand a profit. Isn’t this money that should have been spent on teaching? As with any other public procurement process, it is essential that PFI procurement secures value for money (VfM). PFI projects cannot proceed unless they demonstrate better VfM than traditional procurement. A PFI contract can provide incentives for a private sector partner to design a building (or other asset) efficiently as they will be responsible for maintaining it over a long period of time. VfM can also be achieved within a PFI agreement
