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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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| School PFI bad value for money |
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A £326 million PFI scheme to rebuild 12 Birmingham schools represents poor value for money to city taxpayers, education union leaders have claimed.
Birmingham City Council has finalised a deal that will see construction firm Balfour Beatty complete the work as a Private Finance Initiative project.
But public services union Unison claimed local taxpayers would be hit by the interest charged, as the Council will be paying the money back over three decades.
"The taxpayers of Birmingham will be paying for that for the next 30 years," said Caroline Johnson, assistant branch secretary of Unison's Birmingham branch.
"It will be more than if we borrowed the money ourselves and is not value for money.
"I think it is a mistake to rely on the private sector. If the schools really needed rebuilding or refurbishing we could have borrowed the money and given pupils a secure future rather than an insecure one which they will have in the private sector."
"Nationally we had a big discussion about PFI last year at our conference. We had speakers from schools that have been built using PFI money.
"They said they look beautiful at first but when you move into them they turn out not to be quite what you expected.
"We had teachers saying they couldn't fit pupils in because the classrooms were half the size. Some of the schools were saying things had gone wrong really quickly."
Ms Johnson said schools could face funding problems similar to those now experienced by health trusts that have used PFI extensively.
The National Union of Teachers claimed the authority was putting education at risk by "mortgaging for the future".
"Our children and grand-children will be paying for it," said a spokesman for the NUT's Birmingham branch.
"The building is still owned by the organisation that built it so there is also a democratic deficit." |
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