1.36 Twenty-one per cent of the project teams surveyed could not say what the contractor's current financial structure was. This contributed to some authorities being unable to give us information on whether or not there had been any change to the contractor's financing arrangements since contract letting. Information about such changes can help to indicate whether or not refinancing gains may have arisen.
1.37 The absence of information in these cases reflects the fact that authorities do not always have open access to their contractors' financial records. In our Managing the Relationship report survey in November 2000, we found that 55 per cent of authorities had open-book accounting arrangements with their contractors (although this may not always provide full information about the contractors' financing arrangements). The OGC considers, however, that the proportion of projects with open-book accounting has been increasing since this survey.
1.38 In situations where departments do not have information about their contractors' current financing arrangements or there is no requirement to seek approval for refinancings and no benefit-sharing arrangement, other refinancings could have been occurring without the departments being aware.