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?
PFI has detailed performance metrics: One of the real benefits of PFI is that the structure gives the ability to measure in detail the performance of an asset over the life of the PFI contract (between 15 and 30 years)-performance measurement is built into contracts, is transparent and can be provided to the public sector by a contractor at a marginal cost, as it tracks reporting requirements it already has to its shareholders and its lenders.
In traditional procurements, the only way to replicate such an assessment would be through internal procedures in the relevant body responsible for administering that asset. As noted above, historically there seems to be a lack of data collected and made available on the operation and performance of traditionally procured projects.