60 For many years LEAs and the DfES have held different views on the design standards of new-build schools. In the past, many local authorities topped up the capital allocations provided by DfES on traditional build schemes. Most of the LEA officers interviewed stated that affordability gaps under PFI had grown as a result of some of the improvements introduced, such as whole-life maintenance and more professionally managed FM services. But, as Chapters 2 and 3 have shown, the additional cost of these improvements was not off-set in the early schemes by the hoped for efficiency gains in schools' capital and running costs resulting from DBO synergies, innovation or service efficiencies. Consequences of affordability gaps include:
• protracted deal negotiations; and
• 'horse-trading' about what to take out, or about who pays or who carries a risk, often at a very late stage in the negotiations and sometimes, through pressure of time, excluding users from decisions.
61 LEAs and PFI providers also expressed concern about the DfES mechanism for calculating PFI credits via the 'toolkit' (Ref. 12). Proposed legislative changes could make it difficult for authorities to find additional money locally to fund PFI schemes unless it is allowable to make inroads into the relevant standard spending assessment (SSA) block. Schools that are not receiving, for example, the higher level of cleaning service provided under PFI may be reluctant to see additional financial support provided to those schools that benefit. The problem increases as LEAs try to embark on second or third PFI schools projects. In principle, it makes every sense to build on PFI learning within individual LEAs by doing more PFI, but some LEAs said that affordability problems may limit the number that can be undertaken.