7. Would public sector investment in the last decade have been lower without Private Finance? If so, by how much?
PFI has delivered key Government policy: PFI procurement represents only about 10-15% of the Government's total investment in public services34 and has been described by the Government as having "a small but important role in the Government's investment plans".35 At the same time, it has been the key tool for delivery of Government policy in certain areas such as health, education and prisons. So although its absence may not have been felt significantly across the whole procurement programme, it would have meant significantly less progress was made in certain sectors, as the same level of investment could not have been facilitated using traditional procurement methods, both in financial terms (due to the large initial capital outlay which would have been required to pay up-front for the construction of the assets) and in practical terms (as noted above, the public sector is not set up to deliver such an intensive procurement programme in terms of sheer volume of deals, particularly taking into account the variety of procuring bodies that have procured PFI projects since 1997, such as local authorities, NHS Trusts, LEAs etc).