3.3 The PFI contract is central to preparing for and managing the expiry process. These contracts are long, complex documents and in most cases, the parties to the PFI contract will have made amendments over time to change service requirements or achieve specific savings. We have identified a small number of examples where the public authority (the authority) no longer holds part or all of the original contract. The authority then needs to request a copy of the contract from the special purpose vehicle (SPV) or other parties such as lawyers. Depending on the number of variations, it can take a considerable amount of time to gather together the PFI contract. For example, Highways England (HE), which has started to prepare for expiry early, did this sequentially for all its contracts over a period spanning a year. HE was aware of this potential difficulty ahead of time and therefore started this preparation process early.
3.4 The sponsor department will sometimes hold copies, but there is no central electronic repository of PFI contracts to systematically assess which authorities are exposed to risks such as poorly drafted handover provisions. The Infrastructure and Projects Authority (IPA) does, however, maintain a PFI database which includes information on each of the 700+ contracts, such as the capital value of the project, annual unitary charge, date the contract was signed and contract length. This information is updated annually, with the IPA making enhancements to the database. For example, the next annual update will, for the first time, include expiry dates for each contract. This new data will be central to the IPA's expiry programme (see paragraph 1.15). Furthermore, the IPA has recently improved its knowledge of the key private stakeholders in PFI projects, which has been shared with some departments.31 However, there is little evidence that this data is being used proactively, either by the IPA or the sponsor departments, to improve the negotiating position of authorities with the same private stakeholders.
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31 Key private stakeholders include equity shareholders and management service companies.