Q171 Matthew Hancock: From my anecdotal experience, although it is only anecdotal, there are trusts who ask the centre for help in managing their PFI and haven't been able to get it. Even in a decentralised system, having good comparable data is not a lack in centralisation-actually that helps the accountability-
Peter Coates: If you would like those trusts to contact me, I would gladly give them any support they want.
Q172 Chair: No, that's not the point.
Mr Bacon: The point is you have come here before Parliament; Sir David Nicholson is the accounting officer for the whole shooting match, but he is not here today, you are. I have a sheet here the NAO has just given me; the payments over the next 10 years to 2019/20 are £10.79 billion. It is the job, not just of the NAO but of this Committee to look at that and say, "Which bits of it were value for money and which bits weren't?" To do that we need some basic information, and you are telling us you're not able to get it. In fact you said the basic fact is we can't compel the trusts to give it to us. It makes it quite difficult for us to do our job.
Peter Coates: I understand that point. One of the reasons why I quite like the idea of the club is it tries to put on to the trusts the importance of doing this function. As it stands at present the Department cannot compel trusts to provide this data.
David Finlay: One of the difficulties with the information, and it is noted here in the bottom of the notes to figure 11, is that after 2007/08, the last year it was entered here, data was only collected at a trust level rather than a site level. Trusts may have a number of different hospitals or a number of different sites, so the way in which data is collected now is less useful for analysing individual projects.
Chair: I think it is clear what one of our recommendations will be.
Q173 Jackie Doyle-Price: Page 39 of the Report says that there are six trusts with a deficit, five of which have PFI contracts. My Primary Care Trust is one of them in South-West Essex, and it has a pretty toxic PFI contract to manage. We have already discussed earlier that we don't have the ability to reduce costs when we're tied into a contract. What monitoring is being done in terms of what that will mean for cutting clinical services? Because I can say quite categorically that that is leading to serious cuts in clinical services in my area.
Peter Coates: I'm sure that the reporting systems that exist within the NHS covering SHAs and Department cover this area, but it is not part of the PFI reporting process. I can provide you with a note but I can't say how individual trusts are managing this problem.
Q174 Jackie Doyle-Price: That would be very helpful and it would be nice if that was a bit forward looking, bearing in mind that some of these contracts are for 30 years, and health needs change quite significantly over 30 years and obviously we are where we are once a contract has been tendered. I think it would be helpful to have a note for the Committee.
Chair: That's interesting. Apparently, foundation trusts' chief executives are directly accountable to Parliament as accounting officers.
Mr Bacon: We could have them lined up down the corridor, Mr Coates, with you at the back and we could have them in for an hour at a time and when we got to 101-
Peter Coates: I am quite disappointed you didn't know actually.
Q175 Mr Bacon: I thought they were delegated accounting officers, but they're accounting officers in their own right now?
David Finlay: Sorry, I didn't hear
Mr Bacon: Are hospital chief executives in foundation trusts, accounting officers in their own right, not delegated accounting officers?
David Finlay: Yes they are.
Chair: We have managed that brilliantly. It is the vote. Thank you so much.
Matthew Hancock: You've managed it brilliantly; it's all down to you.
Chair: Thank you so much. I do recognise the constraints of the work. Thank you very much indeed, thank you.
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