Wondering what is happening to your Council’s bid for PFI credits?
Curious about how your money is being spent?
The the PRG website is for you!
The Project Review Group (PRG) oversees the approval process for local authority PFI (Private finance Initiative) projects that receive Government support. It is the gatekeeper for the delivery of PFI credit funding to the local authority PFI programme.
PRG meetings are normally held on the third Tuesday of every month. Exceptional meetings are occasionally held when a sufficient number of Outline Business Cases (OBCs) are received to be reviewed by the panel; similarly meetings are not held in a month when no OBCs have been received.
Minutes of meetings and other information is available on-line.
Please visit the site, rummage round the minutes, and report back on anything of interest! You can leave a comment below…
1Keith Kondakor on Apr 27, 2009 at 1:07 pm:
The system seems to just work for the bankers and accountants
The chair of the PRG works for Deloitte but decides on how our tax money is spent.
Look at the minutes of commons committee:-
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200708/cmselect/cmpubacc/332/332.pdf
Q28 Mr Bacon: I would like to ask Mr McKechnie a
question. You are Head of PFI Policy. I have always
been slightly worried about the fact that the Head of
PFI Policy in the Treasury always appears to be a
secondee. I take it your predecessor, Mr Abadie, has
gone back to PricewaterhouseCoopers, has he?
Mr McKechnie: Yes, he has.
Q29 Mr Bacon: And you are from Deloitte, is that
right? Is your salary paid by Deloitte?
Mr McKechnie: I am a partner of Deloitte and I am
paid by them.
Q30 Mr Bacon: You continue to be paid by Deloitte
so your being inside the Treasury is not a burden on
the public purse, so to speak?
Mr Kingman: There is a contractual arrangement
between us and Deloitte, as you would expect. I am
surprised that you are surprised. From my point of
view it is absolutely vital to have in the Treasury
people who have done this and really know where
the bodies are buried.
Q31 Mr Bacon: It is just that the phrase “PFI policy”
kind of suggests that it is being driven by outsiders.
Mr Kingman: It is not driven by outsiders at all, but
we do need to formulate policy in a way that is savvy.
I honestly think this Committee would be the first to
criticise us if we just had a bunch of bright young
Treasury civil servants doing their best; we would be
skinned alive.
2Shlomo on Jun 1, 2009 at 1:33 pm:
from The Scottish Environmental Services Association (“SESA”)
[The sectoral trade association for Scotland's managers of waste and secondary resources]:
http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/S3/committees/finance/inquiries/capInvest/c_invest-SESA%20-%20RF.pdf
“PFI was designed to deliver and maintain large-scale infrastructure rather than complicated long-term services contracts. The structure of PFI contracts has subsequently been ill-suited to the provision of long-term integrated waste management solutions. The additional complexity involved in delivering multiple facilities at different times providing a suite of activities is a further problem not addressed in standard PFI contracts. The provision of waste-specific derogations has helped to improve the flexibility associated with waste PFI contracts but more could be done in this regard.”