Five sectors, namely health, transport, housing, ICT and education accounted for 67.6% of buyout, terminated and major problem contracts - see Table 3.
Table 3: Sector analysis of buyouts, terminations and major problem contracts
Sector | Buyouts | Terminations | Major problems |
|
| No | No | No | Total |
Education | 1 | 1 | 6 | 8 |
Health | 3 | 2 | 9 | 14 |
Housing | 0 | 0 | 9 | 9 |
Transport | 3 | 6 | 1 | 10 |
Highways | 1 | 0 | 3 | 4 |
Waste management | 1 | 2 | 2 | 4 |
Fire and Rescue | 0 | 3 | 1 | 4 |
Water treatment | 0 | 0 | 2 | 2 |
0 | 2 | 7 | 9 | |
Criminal Justice | 1 | 1 | 1 | 3 |
Public administration | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
Defence | 0 | 1 | 1 | 2 |
Misc. | 0 | 2 | 1 | 3 |
Total | 11 20 43 | 74 | ||
Source: Tables 10, 11 and 12 in Appendices.
Buyouts of PFI/PPP contracts occurred between 3.9 and 13.8 years, with an average of 8.8 years, from the date of financial close of the project (see Appendix A). The average length of time for terminated contracts was 6.0 years - see Appendix B. It was difficult to identify the precise time when major problems became evident in many projects; hence it was not possible to provide a comparable figure for projects in Appendix C.
There are many other issues, such as cost overruns, delays and problem contracts that affect service users and staff, but they are not classified as 'major problems' and thus have not been included in the data for this report.
In July 2003 the UK government announced that PFI should not be used for ICT projects, in part due to their performance and inability to adapt to rapid technological change. However, delays and cost increases have been common in other sectors, as this report demonstrates.