This bloody annoys me.
Public Finance Initiative schemes will cost every household nearly £400 next year
PFI deals were invented in 1992 by the Conservative government led by Sir John Major, but became widespread under Labour after 1997.
The price tag for repaying PFI firms will reach £8.6 billion next year alone, with the taxpayer owing a total of £121.4 billion on public projects which are worth only £52.9 billion.
Many PFI deals also tie local authorities into expensive catering, cleaning and maintenance contracts, meaning the total bill to the taxpayer is £229 billion. In one case, a school was charged £320 for a plug socket.
Repayments are made over a long time scale, usually between 25 and 30 years but occasionally as long as 60 years, but at a high rate of interest. That meant that large debts were stored up for future taxpayers – which now have to be repaid.
Under a Treasury slight of hand, PFI debts do not form part of the deficit balance sheet.
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Was Gordon Brown the biggest disaster ever to hit the UK economy? All the evidence suggests that he didn't understand proper financial control at all.
Public Finance Initiative schemes will cost every household nearly £400 next year
PFI deals were invented in 1992 by the Conservative government led by Sir John Major, but became widespread under Labour after 1997.
The price tag for repaying PFI firms will reach £8.6 billion next year alone, with the taxpayer owing a total of £121.4 billion on public projects which are worth only £52.9 billion.
Many PFI deals also tie local authorities into expensive catering, cleaning and maintenance contracts, meaning the total bill to the taxpayer is £229 billion. In one case, a school was charged £320 for a plug socket.
Repayments are made over a long time scale, usually between 25 and 30 years but occasionally as long as 60 years, but at a high rate of interest. That meant that large debts were stored up for future taxpayers – which now have to be repaid.
Under a Treasury slight of hand, PFI debts do not form part of the deficit balance sheet.
--------------------------------------------------------
Was Gordon Brown the biggest disaster ever to hit the UK economy? All the evidence suggests that he didn't understand proper financial control at all.
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