Its good news that the Budget will get through the Scottish Parliament tomorrow. After what was probably a helpful shot across the SNP bows, the time for working together was now and it would appear all have heeded the call.Interestingly however, there's a wee twist to this tale. According to the BBC, one of the parts of the deal that brought the Libdems to the table was an agreement that some schools will be commissioned under PP/PFI because the Scottish Futures Trust remains a chocolate teapot.
But isn't that the same Lib Dems who on Edinburgh Council voted and campaigned against PPP. Will they now bid to be amongst the Councils to have school under PPP (and will there be level playing field support as there was under Labour...)
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I never understood why the Labour Party so enthusiastically embraced privatisation via the PPP route - it was one of the reasons why I left the party.
Yes you get shiny new buildings. But they are usually of very low quality, the staff that provide most of the auxillary services are moved into the private sector - janitors, cleaners etc - and in the case of schools we have had contracts where school sports teams have to pay to use their own fields...
And for all this we pay through the nose for decades. Sorry, but I still don't get it...
PPP got us a huge number of schools very quickly after years of neglect. What was called the "traditional route" had failed as well because school maintenance, now embedded into price, was a soft target for cuts. The private sector still built schools under the traditional route and still made money from the loans involved but under PPP they take the risk. I take the point that some contracts were not as tight as they should have been but that's not a given in all cases. PPP does not work in all sectors. I think the ERI contract is a disaster but it has done for schools. And as for costs. when you count maintenance costs and risk transfer, the cost to the taxpayer is not as some would have you believe.
thanks for your comment
Ewan
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