Total costs of projects with PFI model funding: FOI release

FOI reference: FOI/18/00148
Date received: 9 January 2018
Date responded: 19 January 2018

Information requested

How much interest and charges the Scottish tax payers will pay and have paid thus far, in total where projects have been delivered, or are being delivered currently through private finance initiatives. In short:

• A list of government deliveries where PFI was the preferred funding model, be it schools, hospitals, bridges or other infrastructure.
• Total costs of projects before interest and charges on the borrowing applied.
• Total cost of projects long term where PFI models have been used to fund said projects.

Response

Most of the information you have requested is already in the public domain and is available from the Scottish Government website under 'Unitary Payment Charges' by way of the following link www.scotland.gov.uk (see section relating to 'PPP/PFI Projects (operational)'). Under section 25(1) of FOISA, we do not have to give you information which is already reasonably accessible to you. If however, you do not have internet access to obtain this information from the website listed, then please contact me again and I will send you a paper copy.

The aforementioned published data includes the capital value of each project which excludes interest and other charges such as insurance and lifecycle maintenance which are contained within the unitary charge payments. The published data does not include the information relating to the second bullet point of your request, 'Total costs of projects before interest and charges on the borrowing applied' as this is not held centrally by the Scottish Government. As those public authorities which are responsible for the management of PFI contracts are all subject to the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 (FOISA), any request for further information relating to the PFI contracts held and managed by them, should be made directly to them.

About FOI

The Scottish Government is committed to publishing all information released in response to Freedom of Information requests. View all FOI responses at http://www.gov.scot/foi-responses