Further to earlier exchanges about the whole-life cost of PFI contracts, the Committee wanted to know how much of the total unitary charges were made up of capital payments.
Taking no account of inflation or time preference, the sum total of unitary charge payments over the next 30 years is £180.7 billion based on the latest published data from November 2007. I have previously emphasised to the committee-and will not labour the point here-that this figure is not meaningful as it adds together numbers in money of very different years; expressed in today's terms, using the standard discounting methodology, the aggregate total is £99.9 billion.
This £99.9 billion in present-value unitary charge payments relates to assets with a total capital value of £56.9 billion (under accounting rules set by the independent bodies, £23.9 billion of this capital is considered to be on the public sector's balance sheet). The £99.9 billion also includes payment for the associated services, such as cleaning, catering and maintenance, associated with running these assets.