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Top e-government news, updated daily, and regular features from the top people in the public sector.
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| SNP Reveal Plans to Replace PFI |
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SNP Leader Alex Salmond MP, has unveiled proposals to replace the PFI with a Scottish Futures Trust that will deliver vital infrastructure improvements for Scotland's schools, hospitals and transport network and free up an additional £116m a year for investment in frontline services.
Mr Salmond published a new SNP policy paper highlighting the £5bn extra cost for Scotland of the credit card level repayments on current PFI projects and detailing the potential for big annual savings if projects currently in the pipeline used bond issues instead of PFI for funding.
Commenting Mr Salmond said:
"If we are going to build a foundation for success in Scotland and begin to make real progress in our public services, we need a new Age of Improvement and a new, more effective way of delivering the big capital projects, the improved schools, health facilities and transport network, Scotland needs.
"PFI is proving to be Labour's biggest public policy disaster with our hospitals and schools lumbered with credit card levels of interest payments, way above the rate we could and should be paying. Over the lifetime of current PFI projects Labour's PFI disaster will leave Scotland paying £5bn more than it needed to.
"The SNP will sort out Labour's mess. With a Scottish Futures Trust, using bond issue, there is the potential within current planned PFI schemes to find £116m in annual savings.
"This is money the SNP in government will direct away from debt repayments and rocketing private profit and back in to the frontline of service delivery.
"It is not good enough that our schools and hospitals, roads and water infrastructure face being burdened with 30 year high-interest repayments, with excessively tight contracts that prevent the flexibility and level of service we have come to expect from our public services.
"PFI was a quick fix, introduced first by the Tories and developed by Labour and the Liberal Democrats. It was a costly mistake that has left patients facing sky-high charges for parking or telephone calls in our hospitals.
"It means schools are limited in the range of after school activities they can offer because of the often high charges associated with out of hours opening of these community facilities. This is simply not good enough.
"In government the SNP will act to end the crippling costs of PFI borrowing. Our proposal for a Scottish Futures Trust, will see greater use of public bond issues so that our public services can have access to lower cost borrowing, our public assets can be held in trust for the nation all without the unnecessary private profit that is part and parcel of PFI." |
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