PFI in School Building - Does it Influence Educational Outcomes

We are pleased to introduce the 2009 Edition of KPMG's Infrastructure Spotlight Report focusing on the interaction between the UK Private Finance Initiative (PFI) and school building and their relation to educational outcomes. PFI is a form of Public Private Partnership (PPP or P3) used in the United Kingdom.

We were thrilled with the reception of our first report, published in 2008, and by the willingness to engage in open debate on this issue.

In this 2009 edition we have used your feedback to further focus our research and specifically look at the performance of schools rebuilt under PFI, compared with schools rebuilt conventionally.

The headline from our research is that the performance trend identified in 2008 appears to persist. Educational performance in newly rebuilt PFI schools improves faster than in conventional ones. We believe this finding to be underpinned by analysis on the most substantive dataset available and as such serves as a basis for informed debate. We have used a dataset that is both larger and of better quality than the one we analysed last year.

We do, nevertheless, hope that the analysis presented provides governments around the globe with new insights into their investment strategies as the market continues to evolve.

Kai Rintala

Head of Infrastructure Intelligence
KPMG in the UK


© 2009 KPMG LLP, a UK limited liability partnership, is a subsidiary of KPMG Europe network of independent member firms affiliated with KPMG International, a Swiss cooperative RRD129963