The UK has been a global leader in the implementation of over 800 PFI/PPP projects since the early 1990's. Projects cover both 'economic' and 'social' infrastructure and a wide range of sectors, such as transport, utilities, health, education, housing, criminal justice and defence.
UK governments, construction companies, banks and consultants have played a key role in promoting the PFI/PPP model in other countries, which has included making unsubstantiated claims about its so-called 'advantages' and denigrating direct public investment. Hence, the overall performance of the UK's PFI/PPP projects with regard to buyouts, bailouts, terminations and major problem contracts is of global interest. This is examined in Part 5.
The objective of this research paper is to identify and analyse the PFI/PPP contracts that have been subject to buyout, bailout, and termination or have experienced major problems. It seeks to identify the main causes of these problems and flaws in the PFI/PPP model. The analysis is a substantial expansion of Appendix 4: Terminated UK PPP projects in PPP Wealth Machine: UK and Global trends in trading project ownership (Whitfield, 2012).