Q161 Matthew Hancock: Could you also add to that the estimated cost at the start as a PFI project and the estimated public sector comparator for each one?
Peter Coates: Yes.
Q162 Matthew Hancock: Thank you. Also will you meet the Parliamentary PFI Rebate Campaign? There is a group of people who are trying to reduce the PFI costs of their local hospitals.
Peter Coates: Gladly.
Q163 Chair: I wanted to ask one more question on health, as we're not being called to a vote, which is the issue about deductions. I know we are coming to an end, but it struck me in the Report that over half of the trusts don't charge a deduction. Where they do charge a deduction, it's minute. On page 34 of your Report there was this quite astonishing example of Oxford Radcliffe saying, "We don't want to do deductions because that would undermine our relationship with the actual hospital." Yet a third say that at least one service is unsatisfactory. This may be a centre/decentralised issue, but it seems to me that the trusts are not exercising the power that they have within the contracts to eke out best value, even in this field of taking deductions where they should have them.
Peter Coates: I am aware that the PAC said they should always take the deductions if they are due to be taken.
Q164 Chair: But there's nothing you can do?
Peter Coates: We just won't know. We just won't know when this happens. The only reason it was picked up here was because Oxford was one of the trusts that the NAO interviewed extensively. What I can say about this trust is that they, for reasons down to themselves as accounting officers, decided to forgo the £7,000 owed to them because they wanted to build a better relationship with their service provider, who was Carillion.
Chair: Oh my God, we had Carillion.
Peter Coates: I am told that in 2010 when they market-tested their services they decided not to go to the market and keep Carillion on. Their view then was clearly that £7,000 was very well invested because they have now a much better service to them and their patients.
Q165 Chair: Can I just ask this question because I am getting really muddled, and I don't want to make this partisan. Are you under an instruction not to collect the data because of the decentralisation of power to the trusts?
Peter Coates: I can't remember the exact process but there is a mechanism you have to go through in terms of communicating with the NHS, and collecting data like this would fall outside the agreed methodology.
Q166 Chair: What do you need to do? It seems incredible to me that we're not going to have the data to be able to do the evaluation.
Peter Coates: If I may look at the data that is being provided, because it is one of those areas that's interesting. They are on page 24 of the Report. If you look at the information, on all of the areas, starting for example with maintenance, you have a typical distribution of events where you have something that is very low and something that is very high. In maintenance, some trusts are paying over £70 a square metre to have their buildings maintained and some are paying less than £10 a square metre. The biggest one is in portering, where you have some trusts paying £1,000 and some paying £7,000, and all those trusts are non-PFI trusts.
Food is the example most commented on in the Report, and I agree with the Member who said, "It's not the £12 I'm worried about, it's the £3", because I don't see how you can possibly provide three nourishing meals a day to somebody for £3, quite frankly. If you look at how you calculate costs, the problem with food is that you could say that the calculation of food costs is just the food itself. It is the food plus the catering staff; it is the food plus those people who are on the catering staff and those who serve it on the ward. There is all those other things plus maintenance. Food plus depreciation. There are so many different ways you can calculate the number.
Q167 Chair: If I can interrupt you, that's why it's absolutely crucial that the Department sets the framework in which you then collect the data for us to be able to make the-
Peter Coates: We actually went back to the Trust that has £12 and they said that it is £5 for food and £5 for serving it.
Matthew Hancock: Did that make £12?
Peter Coates: At today's prices.
Q168 Chair: Why don't you set that framework of data?
Peter Coates: In the centre, I have to design how best to allocate resources to support trusts to get the best value that they can. Our preferred method of operation is that we intervene when we are asked to do that.
Q169 Chair: I understand about intervention; I am not asking about intervention. I am actually asking about information which would allow judgments to be made here, within the Department, among the inspectorate, among the public, whoever, about relative value. I can't see anyone but you setting the framework that all those trusts jolly well have to fill in, comparative data, so we can then compare apples with apples and come to some-
Peter Coates: The bitter truth is we cannot compel trusts to do these forms.
Q170 Stephen Barclay: The point is, even at a more basic level, the Report says 12 reported no expenditure on contract management. Did you know that 12 of them weren't even managing their contracts at all?
Peter Coates: We did not know that. I did not know that.
Stephen Barclay: So the Department wasn't aware of that?
Peter Coates: The Department may have known; I did not know that personally. I think the Report says that it defines nobody as less than one person a week. That doesn't mean that nobody is doing it or nobody is accountable; it is a very low level. Our view is that all projects, whether PFI or otherwise, should be properly project managed by the trusts.
Chair: Nobody is denying that; we are not interfering with that. I tell you, I haven't used my own Trust, but my own Trust is the worst performing; the PFI contract is a nightmare to it and the revenue costs arising out of it have created-Jackie will know this- complete financial mayhem for that trust. There has to be a way at the centre, even at our level as MPs, that we have the data and nobody but you can do that.