Q51 Mr Gibb: No; okay, carry on.
Mr Banks: The benefits from PFI prisons in terms of the construction and the transfer of risk and funding come out in terms of the speed, producing prisons within budget-
Q52 Mr Gibb: We discussed this on the visit last week.
Mr Banks: Yes, we did.
Q53 Mr Gibb: I did not get the impression from you then that you found it advantageous to have the banks involved, that it was neither here nor there. Is that still the case?
Mr Banks: The most important aspect of DCMF is the design and management. In the actual construction and financing, certainly the financing is secondary in terms of the overall process.
Q54 Mr Gibb: So why do we have PFI instead of privately-managed prisons.
Mr Steele: The PFI has brought together the synergy of all three elements, the financing, the design and the construction. The financing is a little academic. You could publicly finance the prison.
Q55 Mr Gibb: Why do we not do that?
Mr Steele: We have not chosen to do that in recent times.
Q56 Mr Gibb: Why?
Mr Steele: Government policy was to go for PFI prisons at that stage.
Q57 Mr Gibb: Why is that?
Mr Steele: Because we thought that the overall package would provide value for money. The banks do bring something to the equation.
Q58 Mr Gibb: What I am trying to establish, and I have not managed it so far, is what the banks do bring to the whole package other than the high risk.
Mr Steele: I think they bring a commercial understanding of risk, which in the early days would have been advantageous.
Q59 Mr Gibb: Do Mr Banks and his company bring that?
Mr Steele: He does now, but when we started out with PFI, we did not have these companies used to delivering prisons in this country.
Q60 Mr Gibb: So why do you not go back to privately managed prisons now you have established this expertise in the private sector?
Mr Steele: We would always contract out the construction of the prison.