7.53 Delivery of the Government's objectives for housing are dependent on significant programmes of capital investment. The Government is turning round a £19 billion backlog in repairs and maintenance in the social housing sector and has set a target to make all this housing decent by 2010. PFI is already contributing to delivery of that objective, but its role could also be expanded to assist with the major programme of affordable house building for social housing tenants and keyworkers, as one possible element in a range of public-private partnership approaches to the procurement and ongoing management of different kinds of affordable housing stock. Affordable housing provision could benefit from PFI investment because:
• it involves the provision of capital assets where effective project management incentivised by appropriate risk-sharing would bring significant benefits; and
• because of their long life, these assets could benefit from design, construction and costing made on a whole of life basis by private sector parties incentivised to ensure best value.