20. The Committee's Report, The Renegotiation of the PFI-type Deal for the Royal Armouries Museum in Leeds, found that the public sector had bailed out the private sector.38 The OGC said that cost overruns and risks which had a high probability of occurrence and a low impact to be picked up by the private sector. But the risk of catastrophic failure to provide a public service, which had a low probability but very high impact, could never be transferred to the private sector. The public sector had to keep providing the service, and if the authority had followed standardisation of contracts, it would have rights to step in take over the running of the contract and would be able to seek other providers.39 Under the standardisation of PFI contracts there were termination provisions that defined the circumstances in which an authority could terminate the contract where the contractor was in default for not delivering a public service.40
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38 4th Report from the Committee of Public Accounts, The Renegotiation of the PFI-type Deal for the Royal Armouries Museum in Leeds (HC 359, Session 2001-02)
39 Qs 231-239, 246
40 Qs 227-229