Public-private partnerships not benefitting taxpayer

(The Telegraph): British taxpayers "rarely" benefit from public-private partnerships (PPP), which are more expensive and no more efficient than Government-procured projects, a study has concluded. Nearly 30 years after the UK Government turned to the private sector to help build the Channel Tunnel, the hybrid projects are still failing to produce "value for money", the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) and Manchester Business School have said. In the joint report, Professor Graham Winch of Manchester Business School said: "The value-for-money case for PPP in the public sector has yet to be proven. The benefits gained from the availability of 'extra' finance, the transfer of risk from public to private sector, and improvements in decision-making processes are too nebulous to provide any certainty that they outweigh all the known problems."

The conclusion is a blow to the Government processes, which specifically set "value for money" as the main objective for PPP and its successor programme, Private Finance Initiatives (PFI).

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