more PFI problems

COLTRANE · (#1 (**permalink**))

The school meals revolution set in motion by celebrity chef Jamie Oliver has already run into difficulties as long-term contracts with private companies prevent schools getting rid of junk food.

The Guardian has learned that new schools locked into 25-year contracts through private finance initiatives are finding that they cannot rid their menus of junk food despite the government's pledge.
Other schools are also running into problems as they discover that they face substantial financial penalties if they try to opt out of long-running contracts with private catering companies.
Of course you can buy your way out of the contract for a substantial fee but surely this makes PFI more expensive than any alternative.
And there was me thinking that the involvement of the private sector would allow services to be more responsive than the fuddy duddy, old public sector.
so PFI is more expensive, has hidden long term costs as private sector borrowing increases, is delivering lower standards and is now locking services in place. Public services sure will be safe in Gordon's hands

link:http://politics.guardian.co.uk/election/story/0,15803,1469548,00.html

MarcusGarveyLives · (#2 (**permalink**))

I think that you (and The Guardian) will find that the provision of soft FM services under PFI contracts is usually benchmarked and subject to market testing at regular intervals.

Alternatively, don't sign a contract if you don't understand it.

Backatya · (#3 (**permalink**))

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@ Coltrane
Private Finance Initiatives were not conceived to save or reduce public expenditure, but just as a means to get public money (yours and my taxes) into the hands of those who run the private sector..... i.e. the same big boys who pay loads into the coffers of political parties.

Respect

Biko · (#4 (**permalink**))

PFI= privatisation via the backdoor=public services are privatised and the public pay the expenses without the benefits.

MarcusGarveyLives · (#5 (**permalink**))

I think that you (and The Guardian) will find that the provision of soft FM services under PFI contracts is usually benchmarked and subject to market testing at regular intervals.

Alternatively, don't sign a contract if you don't understand it.

COLTRANE · (#6 (**permalink**))

Infact that the main reason PAUL BOATENG is going to South Africa because BARONESS AMOS introduced it to them through her consultancy with the SA govt during the Mandela period and now Tony Blair is giving them a person who looks like them to sell the idea to them

nb: did you know that Gordon Brown is a die hard PFI advocate?

COLTRANE · (#7 (**permalink**))

MarcusGarveyLives wrote:

Quote:

I think that you (and The Guardian) will find that the provision of soft FM services under PFI contracts is usually benchmarked and subject to market testing at regular intervals.

Alternatively, don't sign a contract if you don't understand it.

Quote:

@MGL

Quote:

at the end of the day this story highlights everything that is wrong with PFI imho, particularly when everyone is subcontracting to everyone else, who creams off yet more profit. I'm surprised at the end of the day the kids get to eat anything but thin air - even junk food costs money. Surely there should at least be a restriction of sub-sub-sub-contracting, and the tenderers have to show their ability and commitment to provide the service???
The whole thing is wicked and corrupt. I'm not an "equaliser" but do beleive essential services should be provided honestly and cleanly, and not be made into yet another milking cow.

all PFI's run for 25 years at least - the problem is tying frontline service provision into capital spend when both are best operated over different periods of time
If you build and maintain a hospital then it's a straightforward job to predict the service needed in 25 years time. You wouldn't give the builders the contract for any clinical services, however the govt have been linking PFI to frontline service provision in other areas as rather than splitting the contracts.
It's insane

@Backtaya&Biko

PFI was invented to sort out the capital account not the current account. Public capital expenditure is still much higher than PFI, although the balance is changing. You should not finance capital through income tax, it should be borrowing, but the Tories and Gordon B wanted to avoid borrowing and finance it through income.
So strange though it may seem, income tax is now paying for PFI capital spending.
There are plenty of other ways of getting money into the system as Ken Livingstone among others have pointed out. Gordon B seems to have a major blind spot here and it is costing us dearly already, not to mention what it may cost us in the future. There is one guaranteed thing about PFI - private firms will make lots of money. If they don't, they will pull out, go bankrupt etc. and we will pick up the tab.

Right. The way out of this is to break the contract. Obviously the contracts would need to be scrutinised but presumably they are not worded to state that they will provide "junk food" to the children and term these as "meals".
Therefore, I make a few points which spring to mind for consideration in perhaps permitting these contracts to be cancelled/annulled.
1.For the schools to enter into 25 year contracts with contractors to supply school meals, they are exceeding their authority.."binding their successors". (There is no guarantee that the school will exist in 25 years, or that the supplier will exist in 25 years or what conditions will prevail.
2.A 25 year supply contract DEFIES all common sense and seems to represent a dereliction in the "duty of care" of the Board Of Governors. There must be review clauses/periods terms for break clause, circumstances wherby the contract can be renegotiated or terminated..because nobody executing their "duty" as a school governor would ever entertain such an insane notion. Unless of course there is some financial link or corruption at some level..perhaps this should be checked out..after all it is the children who are being effected here.
2. The standard of food required to provide the school meals MUST be of suitable standards, there are nutritional requirements for children and these must be met. I doubt that junk food/processed foods conforms to the required nutritional levels. Again, it goes to common sense, but from a contract position if the companies are NOT providing suitable food then there may be grounds to break the contract.
3. In light of medical evidence of the harmful effects which the additives in processed food can cause in the population as a whole, and more specifically in children in many cases, then it would be possible to use the law and claim that feeding junk food is in effect introducing toxins and products which have KNOWN harmful effects/risks and therefore they cannot be supplied. (Many Behavioural problems in children are indeed associated with food products, therefore contracting "junk food" is scandalous, negligent, abhorrent. Particularly when schools have identified problem behaviour as one of the major challenges facing teachers today!)
4. If the conditions/requirments change, for whatever reason, then the contractors have to respond to that change...schools are a public service
Food for thought? They are already doing this in South Africa due to pressure from TB&DG while they will send their boy Boateng to overse everything runs smooth even though he is black(reminds me of Carl peters &Mungo Park buying and grabing lands in the early days of colonialism in Africa

Just a few points here to think about