B1 The Government's publication of statistics on the PFI programme to date has used a very broad definition covering several different types of private investment in public services and there are a number of areas where there are benefits in making changes to the statistics that are reported. Specifically:
• statistics have not distinguished between investment undertaken under PFI and under other very different PPP transactions or arrangements with the private sector like the Channel Tunnel Rail Link (CTRL);
• some departments report annual expenditure by the private sector in the year it is actually intended to occur, while some have aggregated the full capital value of investment undertaken by the private sector into the year the project contract was signed; and
• there is some overlap in the figures for 'on-balance sheet' PFI investment in the ONS published statistics on PSNI and the figures for the PFI programme.
B2 The Government intends to treat the publication of statistics on PFI differently in future, beginning with the Autumn 2003 Pre-Budget Report (PBR). The aim is to present more comprehensive statistics that are transparent with regard to the kind of transaction - PFI contract or PPP joint venture - to which they refer. This will include publishing biannually, in the Budget and PBR, more data on:
• signed projects;
• future PFI transactions;
• the level of expected payments to the private sector under unitary charges; and
• other information which could be of use to all participants in PFI.