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Dept for Education and Skills

Answer

Mr. Laws: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what her policy is on encouraging local education authorities to use PFI contracts to upgrade school buildings; and if she will make a statement. [29200] John Healey: [holding answer 23 January 2002]: The use of PFI contracts to upgrade school buildings is one of a number of funding options available to local education authorities. If an authority wishes to develop a PFI project, it must first make preliminary proposals to the Department, which are assessed against published criteria. Although the Department currently allocates each year around £850 million PFI credits, we are not able to support all of the proposals put forward. The proposals which best match the published criteria receive provisional support at this stage. Projects are not formally approved until a full Outline Business Case (OBC) has been submitted to the Treasury-chaired Project Review Group. This OBC must include a public sector comparator (PSC). It is a condition of approval that the proposed PFI solution must demonstrate better value for money than the PSC, as well as satisfy various other criteria necessary to demonstrate the viability of the project.

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

29200; 378 c1014-6W

Session

2001-02

Subjects

Buildings Capital investment Local education authorities Private finance initiative Schools

Contains statistics

Yes

Link

View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk