105. Better maintenance is, of course, good. But some fear it has been too expensive. Dr Mark Porter, chair of the consultants committee at the BMA, said: "Anything can be bought but the price at which it is bought is too high, we would say" (Q 559).
106. The Foreign & Commonwealth Office, which used a PFP to build and service the British embassy in Berlin, reported: "Our own experience with Berlin indicates that we have a very well designed and built-to-time embassy which is operated and maintained to an extremely high standard against agreed performance measures. It is doubtful that traditional funding mechanisms would give us the same high quality of maintenance. However, this has come at a very high price" (p 302).
107. Due to data limitations the NAO could not say whether maintenance under private finance was cheaper or not. They said: "Whether it will lead to an overall reduction in whole-life costs would be very difficult to prove" (p 90).
108. Private finance has led to a much needed focus on maintenance of public infrastructure. Public authorities should however keep a watchful eye on the price paid for what is on balance a positive development. We also recommend that the Government should promote the bundling of construction and maintenance, and whole-life costing, in all public procurement, whether privately financed or not.