Q31 Derek Wyatt: Just reassure me, I had a PFI hospital that was in five small hospitals, a community hospital, in four different local authorities, a minefield, but it made lawyers and accountants very wealthy. What I did was I went to the Health Minister to ask if she could explain how it worked and she said it was a matter for Sheffield, and Sheffield would make the decision about the PFI. I then found that in the Treasury there was a health PFI specialist and I went across to see her. She said under no circumstances would they allow this PFI to go forward. It took 18 months in the Health Service for them to say, "This isn't a bad idea", but I already knew that the Treasury were going to say no. Please tell me that does not happen any more.
Mr Kingman: I would hope it does not happen very often. I am not aware of the details of the case obviously, but it does not sound very sensible.
Q32 Derek Wyatt: Do you have regular meetings with the PFI teams across Government?
Mr Kingman: Absolutely, yes.
Q33 Derek Wyatt: Regular, weekly? These are big projects that are going across. We have had one at Dartford, a brand new hospital that has gone broke already in the space of seven years, £100 million, I think.
Mr Pocklington: My team is in regular contact with PFUs around Whitehall.
Q34 Derek Wyatt: What does that mean, "regular"?
Mr Pocklington: Different members of my team would be in touch probably on a daily basis, members of PFUs have more structured meetings.
Q35 Derek Wyatt: I am trying to understand how the Treasury already knew they were not going to approve. Okay, it was only a £50 million thing, but it is still £50 million. How quickly do you tell the opposition, as it were, in Government, "This isn't stacking up, guys"?
Mr Kingman: I really do not know the details of the case.
Q36 Derek Wyatt: Forget that particular one, but there must be others where they go up in each department to the top silo man and then come across to you. The reason the delay is, I would maintain, there is bouncing going up and down the Department and they are trying to double-guess what you are thinking.
Mr Kingman: The situation described is not one we try to run at all. In the first instance, we would not tend to think of the Department as the opposition. What we try to do is have very close relationships with PFUs, precisely so you do not have this long bureaucratic process but so that departments understand clearly what it is that are the Treasury's principles which we set out in guidance and so on. Quite often they come to us and say, "We have got an issue. How do you think that might play out?"
Q37 Derek Wyatt: I think I have exhausted that one. What makes me as nervous is the lack of financial skills in local authorities, so what do you do? Do you actually say your own information-if it is confidential I understand-we have got to say, "Look, we have got league one players, we have got league two and league three. If we are going to give league two and league three players some PFIs, listen, we need to upskill that group"? If you say those sorts of things, what do you do to upskill the knowledge base of local authorities there?
Mr Kingman: As you know, we do not control local authorities.
Q38 Derek Wyatt: I know. One of the great criticisms is there is not enough skill in handling this at local authority level.
Mr Kingman: We would agree that is a major issue. What we have sought to do is,firstly, to give help and support through the Operational Task Force which local authorities have access to and, secondly, to provide secondees so that a local authority that is doing something can get a skilled person to help them. James may want to add.
Mr Stewart: I think it is a challenging issue. In the world we live in local authorities are responsible and accountable for their own procurements and there is a tension when the centre tries to tell local authorities what to do. Some of the problems have certainly been overcome in the Building Schools for the Future programme where there is a strong central body that-
Q39 Derek Wyatt: It is huge amounts of money being released.
Mr Stewart: It is a £2.5 billion a year programme, so I think those sums are justified. Unfortunately, you have individual procurements going on in individual local authorities, if you are trying to provide the skills that you are talking about, it does not come for nothing.
Q40 Derek Wyatt: Are you able to put into the public domain those local authorities that have been to talk to you asking for advice in upskilling? Is that a confidential thing? I would like to get a better idea of which local authorities are any good. Could you provide a league table for us?
Mr Kingman: No, I do not believe we could. We certainly do not do any formal assessment of capability.