4. How effective and costly has it been to monitor the private sector providers' performance and quality of service in Private Finance projects in comparison with traditional procurement?
4.1 It is not a straightforward comparison. In PFI, responsibility for service delivery lies with the private sector and the public sector has a contract management role. As noted above, 74% of contract managers believe they have adequate resources but this suggests that just over a quarter do not.
4.2 PFI contractors are required (under the PFI contract) to provide monitoring information to the authority. The authority will review this data and supplement it where appropriate. But in essence there is a single point of interface for the public authority to deal with and clear standards to be met.
4.3 With a conventional procurement, typically the public sector will be more closely involved with delivery of services. There may not be a "contract management" function at all rather the service will operate within a wider context of management responsibilities and feedback from stakeholders which may be very effective or very poor or somewhere between.
4.4 In practice, there are models between these extremes. There are examples of the government distinguishing commissioning and provision of services within the public sector (such as primary healthcare, council housing).