by Kate Ramsden
| 
Bob Revie
|
Congress will press the Scottish Government to use
the Scotland Act to end PFI and to review existing contracts.
It also called on the government to award grants for
capital projects on the basis of a level playing field,
regardless of how they will be funded, and to give health
boards prudential borrowing powers.
UNISON Scotland's Bob Revie told congress of UNISON's
work on the true cost of PFI detailed in the report,
At What Cost? which shows that PFI contracts
could be costing around £2.1 billion more than
conventional funding of new schools and hospitals.
"UNISON Scotland's analysis of 35 PFI schemes
showed that public sector comparators were on average
6.4% cheaper. This means that for these 35 schemes alone
£720 million is being wasted - nearly enough to
pay the whole PFI bill for Wishaw General Hospital,"
said Bob. "On top of that an incredible £3.5
billion "insurance" policy is paid to the
private sector to cover the risk of things going wrong
with the contract."
On a brighter note, STUC General Secretary Grahame
Smith welcomed the announcement by the First Minister
Alex Salmond that the new Southern Hospital in Glasgow
will be entirely publicly funded at a cost of £842
million.
Grahame said, "This announcement by the First
Minister is a clear endorsement of the STUC's view that
PFI and other finance models for public sector projects
are flawed. We have consistently argued for public funding
for projects such as the Southern Hospitals to provide
value for money for Scotland. We are delighted that
the Government have now reached the same conclusion.
"
But he warned, "whilst welcoming this announcement
we hope, expect and will continue to campaign for this
form of funding for public sector projects to become
the norm."
Bob Revie expressed UNISON's disappointment that despite
their manifesto commitment to get rid of PFI the SNP
government had set up the Scottish Futures Trust, which
has been slammed as "PFI Lite!"
See http://www.unison-scotland.org.uk/response/sftresponsemarch08.html
for a Scottish Futures Response from UNISON Scotland
