10 The Department told us it had learnt lessons from early projects, developed guidance to improve cost estimates and procurement times, and set target procurement timescales for the latest round of projects. The evidence to say whether this is leading to faster procurement is mixed. The time taken to develop business cases has increased, reflecting the Department's aim to make business cases more robust before local authorities are allowed to undertake procurement.
11 The difficulties in the early funding rounds meant the PFI housing programme was slow to develop. Housing is one of the more complex PFI sectors as the challenges and risks posed by the range of building styles and involvement of tenants are different from those found in other PFI sectors. The Department, however, was slow to respond effectively to these challenges and the programme has not subsequently picked up procurement pace.
12 At the time of our audit, local authorities and private sector contractors expressed concerns about the Department's and the Agency's capacity and the level of expertise amongst programme administrative staff and about the transparency of the central management structures. The Agency has subsequently taken steps to increase its capacity and access to appropriate skills. This includes increasing the number of 'transactors' who are individuals with commercial expertise who help some projects through the development and procurement process. While there has also now been time for new management structures to embed, we note that there may be opportunities for the Department and the Agency to streamline working processes, for example, in assessing bids where review by both parties has been sequential rather than in parallel.
13 The programme could have developed more quickly if the Department had attached higher priority to effective management of the programme including timely updating of guidance and adequate resourcing. The Department has now introduced broader, updated guidance and standard documentation to support local authorities. More rigorous performance monitoring and a local authority support and intervention strategy have been introduced. The provision of effective support to local authorities by the Department, however, was put in place slower than it could have been.