5.10 The Treasury already publishes a significant amount of PFI information in the form of the WGA (see Chapter 1) and separately collects information on individual projects2 through an annual data collection. The information on individual projects includes name, procurement status, unitary charge payments, sponsoring department, project company name and its equity holders. The Government will do more to increase the understanding of the information for all users, for example by providing an explanation of the differences between WGA and PFI data collection numbers and publishing a simple guide to understanding some of the more technical details of public private partnerships including the financing arrangements. These will be included as part of the next annual update in spring 2013.
5.11 The private sector highlighted during the call for evidence engagement process that information on the pipeline of projects is important for business planning purposes. Alongside the National Infrastructure Plan 2011 Government published for the first time detailed data on the infrastructure investment and government construction pipelines3. These pipelines have been collated within the Government to provide industry with greater visibility over the future pipeline of Government funded construction projects, wider regulated and private sector infrastructure. The Government is continually working to improve the granularity, quality and coverage of the data in these pipelines. They are updated regularly in order to ensure that they provide up to date and accurate information of the Government's plans.
5.12 In addition to information on pipeline, the Government has introduced a requirement for departments to publish all new central government tenders and contracts over £10,000 on GOV.UK, using Contracts Finder4. For construction projects this will continue to be achieved through a link to the published Government Construction Pipeline5. All new central government project tender and contract documents for PF2 should, therefore, be published on Contracts Finder or through the linked Government Construction pipeline.
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2 PFI data is available at: http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/ppp_pfi_stats.htm
3 The infrastructure and construction pipelines can be found at: http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/infrastructure_pipeline_data.htm
4 https://www.gov.uk/contracts-finder
5 http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/infrastructure_pipeline_data.htm