4. HM Treasury instituted a revised process for assessing the value for money of PFI projects at Spending Review 2004. This process gives an indication at an early stage as to whether PFI is likely to represent value for money based on real evidence of PFI in practice, and employs an ongoing assessment of the project to ensure value for money is maintained during procurement. The value for money assessment process contains three stages:
1. Stage 1: is an initial assessment undertaken by departments during the Spending Review of whether PFI is likely to provide value for money for a whole programme of investment projects;
2. Stage 2: is a later assessment undertaken by the Authority working on a project within the PFI programme to assess whether PFI is likely to provide value for money given the individual circumstances of a particular project; and
3. Stage 3: is an ongoing assessment of the continued competitiveness of the market to ensure that value for money is not compromised once the assessment that PFI is the best route has been made and the procurement commenced.