excoriator
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Post by excoriator on Oct 25, 2017 12:04:20 GMT
Must come into the negotiations surely.
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Post by aubrey on Oct 25, 2017 12:12:47 GMT
No, they get the contract as cheaply as they can and then do the job as cheaply as they can.
The trees thing has happened because old trees are more expensive to maintain than young ones.
The contract was secret as well.
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excoriator
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Post by excoriator on Oct 25, 2017 14:11:02 GMT
I don't know about the trees contract. But the PFI buildings I've been in were certainly not built on the cheap.
Nowhere near as cheap as the state building which cost nothing as they don't get built at all. I really don't understand your obsession with money anyway. You must remember that a subsequent tory government can cut funding, but they cannot cut buildings so easily. The PFI buildings that went up under labour are a big step forward for those of us who use them, and as they do not own them and are committed to paying for them, subsequent tory government cannot close them to save cash.
And it's cheap too. Schools cost about a billion a year, total, in PFI which comes from a total budget of about 90 billion. Hospitals cost about 2 billion from a total budget of about 140 billion.
If you want to continue supporting the bluarses' feeble claim that education the NHS is skint due to PFI, then do so. A quick look at the figures reveals what nonsense this is. Both are underfunded BECAUSE THE GOVERNMENT WON'T GIVE THEM ENOUGH MONEY. Sorry to resort to shouting, but I have pointed this out several times with little effect. Is it so hard to understand?
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jean
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Post by jean on Oct 25, 2017 16:55:08 GMT
You're fantasising again, exco. ...the PFI buildings I've been in were certainly not built on the cheap. How would you know? You only see the shiny bits that are meant to impress the ignorant. Talk to some of the people who have to work in them. Look for the sprinkler systems, for example. That's right - there aren't any. Ask Jeremy to explain. He agrees with me. And a big step backwards if a building turns out, for whatever reason, to be not fit for purpose. In those circumstances, closing it, and saving money, would be the only sensible option. But it can't be done: Parklands High School in Speke has been standing empty since 2014, but a legally binding contract means cash-strapped council chiefs are tied into paying nearly £100m for the abandoned building...
The school was built using private sector cash then leased back to the council under a 25-year deal known as a private finance initiative (PFI).
Liverpool’s cash-strapped town hall has so far paid off £32m – with an eye-watering £58m still to go.[
The council is currently paying off £4.3m a year – equivalent to £12,000 a day – but this bill will increase annually with inflation.Mayor Joe disagrees. Mayor of Liverpool, Joe Anderson , said: “It must be the most expensive PFI school in history.”
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excoriator
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Post by excoriator on Oct 25, 2017 22:15:35 GMT
'Proof' by selection once again! (You are not March in disguise are you Jean?)
Good to see you have overcome your aversion to Joe Anderson enough to quote him as an authority though!
Looked at overall, PFI is not particularly expensive. You must remember that all maintenance is done by the owners too. Something that people like you studiously avoid mentioning when blaming PFI for bluarse underfunding.
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Post by jean on Oct 26, 2017 7:31:30 GMT
'Proof' by selection once again! Evidence from particular cases, exco. This is better than no evidence at all, which is the best that you can do. I do remember. I've given you examples of how those who have manage these buildings are trapped into unnecessary levels of expense by the small print. Me and Jeremy both. Remember that.
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excoriator
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Post by excoriator on Oct 26, 2017 7:54:47 GMT
No, it is Cherry picking, and designed to mislead.
I have already quoted figures for the cost of PFI payments in comparison to the overall cost of Education and Health and shown them to be very small.
Anyway, I am off to visit one and to ask some questions as to why an attempt was made to divert me to a private company rather than this fine NHS establishment.
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jean
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Post by jean on Oct 26, 2017 8:02:47 GMT
I have already quoted figures for the cost of PFI payments in comparison to the overall cost of Education and Health and shown them to be very small. Jeremy isn't fooled, exco. Just stop and ask yourself why you find yourself championing Blairite manipulations against the clear vision and principled stance of Corbyn. And reflect that your lovely PFI hospital is just as much an example of the creeping privatisation of the NHS as the attempt to refer you to a private company for the supply of your hearing aids.
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Post by jean on Oct 26, 2017 8:42:52 GMT
Here's George Monbiot, back in 2002, at the height of Labour's enthusiasm: ...The private companies hoping to build new facilities and rent them back to the government offer what appear to be competitive prices. The government body will select the bid which seems to provide best value for money. The chosen consortium is named the "preferred bidder." It's at this stage that the government starts to negotiate the contract.
As a result, the consortium has the government over a barrel. In theory, the contract is still open to competition. In practice, the insider notes, "I am not aware of a single instance where a [preferred] bidder has been deselected." Once the chosen consortium has its foot in the door, it can increase its price and reduce its services, pretty much as it pleases. There are several familiar means of doing so.
The companies discover costs which weren't envisaged before, and wildly exaggerate the financial risks they run. They price the likely inflation of labour and materials as generously as possible. In some cases, the paper reveals, financial "adjustments" are simply "slipped in" to the huge and complicated spreadsheets used to calculate how much the government owes. "Without decent public sector advisers," the insider writes, the opportunities for this kind of practice are "enormous".
The price of the project can rise, in some cases, by two or three times between the selection of the preferred bidder and the signing of the final PFI contract. But this is the inevitable result of a complete absence of competition during the key stage of negotiation. Now all this is rather odd. The government has repeatedly assured us that it is introducing "private sector disciplines" into public life, that competition makes private provision more efficient than public funding. Yet our new public services are being provided by a system which allows for no competition and no financial discipline, just when they are needed most...And again , in 2010: You've been told that nothing is sacred; that no state spending is safe from being cut or eroded through inflation. You've been misled. As the new public spending data released by the government shows, a £267bn bill has been both ringfenced and index-linked. This sum, spread over the next 50 years or so, guarantees the welfare not of state pensioners or children or the unemployed, but of a different class of customer. To make way, everything else must be cut, further and faster than it would otherwise have been.
This is the money the state owes to private corporations: the banks, construction and service companies that built infrastructure under the private finance initiative. In September 1997 the Labour government gave companies a legal guarantee that their payments would never be cut. Whenever there was a conflict between the needs of patients or pupils and private finance initiative (PFI) payments, it would thenceforth be resolved in favour of the consortia. The NHS owes private companies £50bn for infrastructure that cost only £11bn to build, plus £15bn for maintenance charges.
PFI contracts typically last for 25 or 30 years; in one case (Norfolk and Norwich University hospitals) for 60 years. In 1997 the British Medical Association warned: "The NHS could find itself with a facility which is obsolete in 10 or 20 years' time, but for which it will still have to pay for 30 years or more." No one's celebrating being proved right.
This summer Edinburgh Royal Infirmary, thanks to the extortionate terms of its PFI contract, found itself with a shortfall of £70m. Under other circumstances it would suspend maintenance work and cut ancillary services until the crisis had passed. But its contract demands that it does the opposite: it must protect non-clinical services by cutting doctors, nurses and beds... This is not cherry-picking, any more than my example was. Only actual examples can provide the necessary evidence against your sweeping claims that everything's fine in the brave new PFI world.
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jean
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Post by jean on Oct 26, 2017 8:50:31 GMT
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excoriator
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Post by excoriator on Oct 26, 2017 9:42:11 GMT
I am not interested in Monbiot's, Corbyn's, the conservatives, or your views. I would prefer to look at the relative cost of PFI myself and make my own mind up. I have done so, and found it is trivial and that is a fact.
As regards building hospitals and schools, their existence is more important to me than the money. Whilst it might be cheaper for the NHS and education authorities to build their own facilities, this has not happened and showed no sign of happening. We should not have to make do with leaking crumbling outmoded buildings. PFI got them built, and that's good enough for me.
As to the current claim that PFI is crippling the NHS, That is nonsense as I have proved. The real reason is government underfunding.
As to Sheffield, I don't have much idea of what is really going on there and neither - clearly - do you, but I am a believer in the ability of stupid and greedy local politicians to cock-up ANYTHING including PFI contracts. They have clearly got themselves into a right mess, but the fact that PFI is involved - apparently inappropriately - doesn't necessarily mean it is not the best solution elsewhere.
A bucket is a very poor device to use to stir tea, but that doesn't mean buckets are useless.
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Post by excoriator on Oct 26, 2017 9:53:11 GMT
As a general observation, I think local councils generally hate trees. They grow 'too big', their roots get into things like drains, cable ducts, and building foundations, and they can be held liable, and they generate leaves which have to be cleared from drains and swept up. Occasionally they drop branches onto people and cars, and there are disputes with some people wanting them cut down and other wanting them to be left alone.
Personally, I am all for trees, but I can see why councils - strapped for cash - would like to get rid of the lot of them! I heard one councillor using the phrase 'feral trees' for those that spring up on unused land, which made me laugh in his face!
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Post by jean on Oct 26, 2017 10:25:53 GMT
As to Sheffield, I don't have much idea of what is really going on there and neither - clearly - do you... I do, exco. As you clearly have not read the article I linked to, which would give you the information you need, I must quote some of it: The intermingling of state and corporate power allows corporations to harness the resources and protection of the state, and the state to hide behind its corporate partners. A classic example is the Private Finance Initiative: a programme developed in the UK by the Conservatives but greatly expanded by Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. Under PFI, private companies finance and deliver public goods that governments would otherwise have provided.
We were told it would produce better services at lower cost, but the contracts have repeatedly put corporate demands ahead of public need. The debts afflicting hospitals and other parts of the public sector, as they are forced to keep paying for services they neither want nor need, were both foreseeable and foreseen.
Labour has now promised, if it takes office, to review all PFI contracts and buy them out if necessary. But the message has yet to filter through, even to some Labour councils.
A few days ago, in Sheffield with local campaigners, I toured the battle lines between people and profit. Sheffield has been described as Europe’s greenest city, but the council seems determined to change this through the massacre of many of its famous avenues of trees. In 2012, it signed a contract for what it called “the largest highways PFI programme in the UK” with Amey, a subsidiary of the vast Spanish company Ferrovial.
As part of this programme, Amey earmarked 6,000 trees for felling. Among them were magnificent and stunning specimens, treasured by local people, including famous landmarks such as the Vernon Oak in Dore, the Chelsea Road elm, the Western Road memorial trees and the cherry avenues of Abbeydale Park Rise.
The reasons given for destroying them seemed incomprehensible: the lifting of a kerbstone or two, the cracking of a pavement, roots intruding a couple of inches into the road. These are routine issues in any city, which can be easily and cheaply addressed without any need to attack the tree. In the case of the Chelsea Road elm – a rare survivor of Dutch elm disease, harbouring a colony of even rarer white-letter hairstreak butterflies – the residents commissioned an engineer to provide an estimate for addressing the cracked paving, and discovered it could be done, at minimal cost, without felling the tree.
But, the council tells me, “alternative engineering solutions … are not funded within the contract”. So they cannot be applied, regardless of any cost savings, and regardless of common sense. The terms of the contract were locked in for 25 years in 2012, and cannot be changed. It specifies that the trees must be felled, so down they must come.
Nor can there be meaningful engagement with local people – that, too, would stand outside the terms of the contract. The council has claimed that the issue is too big and too contentious for a public consultation to handle. In a democratic system, big and contentious are generally considered to be reasons for consultation. The 150 year old Vernon Oak in Dore, one of thousands of Sheffield’s street trees earmarked to be felled.
Because a PFI contract must guarantee financial certainty for the corporate partner, it forbids government agencies to learn, adapt and respond. As a result, the landscape architect Steve Frazer points out, Sheffield’s streets, with their rich communities, complex forms and multiple functions, are being reduced to nothing but “conduits for conveying cars and people”. Sterilised, featureless streets are the physical embodiment of a rigid and intolerant mindset, which itself arises from a rigid and unassailable contract. The flexibility that capital demands of the workforce cannot be applied to capital.
If the contract were changed, the council insists, there would be “catastrophic financial consequences”. Exactly what these are is impossible to know, because the relevant sections of the contract have been blacked out. This, the council tells me, is because such details are “commercially confidential or commercially sensitive to either Amey or the council.”
It is hard to see why. It seems to me that the information is more likely to be politically embarrassing than commercially compromising. In a twist that comes straight out of a Franz Kafka novel, the schedule to the contract (#30) that explains why parts of it have been deemed “commercially sensitive” has been withheld from public view. The hybrid nature of PFI provides a never-ending excuse for denying information to the public.
As soon as a PFI contract is signed, the public sector must become the guardian of private sector interests. On Friday two local people, Calvin Payne and the Green councillor Alison Teal, will be tried under another hybrid instrument: a civil case with potential criminal penalties. Sheffield city council has accused them of contempt of court, by breaking the injunction it served to prevent them from obstructing the felling of the trees they love. It has asked for custodial sentences. They might also, if found guilty, be charged with the costs of delaying the contract, which could amount to hundreds of thousands of pounds and result in the seizure of their assets.
Throughout the neoliberal era, governments and companies have devised new criminal and civil procedures to defend capital from protest. This is the force behind market forces. The enabling state, with its strong public services and robust social safety nets, might have been rolled back, but the security state has expanded, to protect corporate profits from democracy.
Those who defend the neoliberal model insist that such arrangements are a distortion of the programme, caused by government meddling, thwarting their purely commercial utopia. But the truth is that this hybrid, Kafkaesque system is an inevitable result of a model that cannot meet our needs – while providing endless opportunities for clientelism and capture. PFI exemplifies the practice of neoliberalism. It exposes the doctrine for what it is: a gigantic self-serving con.
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excoriator
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Post by excoriator on Oct 26, 2017 12:38:33 GMT
Hahahahaha!
Well, you think you do anyway. And I suppose that's all that matters. In fact what you have is one version. There are no doubt others which tell a very different story.
And posting voluminous extracts from doubtful sources with parts emphasised in bold (the internet version of green ink) is getting distinctly reminiscent of March's approach to debate. I'd be a bit careful if I were you, Jean. You may be entering a spiral. You'll be tilting at windmills and Islam-bashing before you know it!
You may find my approach to trees a relaxing form of therapy. I distribute conkers where I can, and many are doing well. Hopefully, in a few years there will be a few more Walnut trees popping up across the Wirral too. Willows are easy to propagate. You just stick twigs from mature trees into the ground - now is a good time to do it. Sycamore and Ash do quite well without my help round here.
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Post by aubrey on Oct 26, 2017 12:44:02 GMT
These are good sources though, exco: the only way you could carry on believing that PFI is a good thing all round is not to have bothered reading them.
The terms of the PFI in Sheffield gives a private company a hell of a lot of power based on a contract that no one has seen: people protesting against them can end up in a civil case costing them an all but unlimited amount, or can be prosecuted and given two years; for stopping a private company from cutting down a healthy tree that it deems too costly to maintain.
That's what PFI does: gives Government powers to an unelected and secretive private organisation that has no interest in serving the community.
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