The claim is made Tim Care, a leading PFI expert. Care urges the next government to free PFI from red tape and other problems following comments by Shadow Chancellor George Osborne, who claims PFI is “flawed and must be replaced.”

Care, who has worked on PFI projects since their UK introduction in the early 1990s and heads the Public Services team at national law firm Dickinson Dees, warns:

“Osborne’s comments are an unhelpful simplification of a complex issue. At a time when the public deficit has soared to £175bn, it would be ludicrous to do anything to discourage private sector investment to ensure our school, hospital and road infrastructure continues to be modernised. Rather than throwing this tool in the bin, whoever forms the next government must concentrate efforts on making it more efficient by at delivering the big projects by removing red tape. Any new models could be an open invitation for red tape to strangle project funding.

“PFI is one of a number of infrastructure funding options, and at its best it delivers projects with lower risk and better value than traditional public sector procurement – a system which is synonymous with spiralling costs and poor delivery. The Conservatives introduced PFI in the UK in the early 1990s to overcome this.

“If whoever forms the next government cares more about improving infrastructure and keeping costs down for the taxpayer than about demonising perfectly good tools, it has no choice but to protect and promote PFI.”