PFI Scheme Overruns and Costs Increase Shocker

Every now and again, you really need to know that you're part of the gang, one of the boys/girls, part of the in-crowd. It's that feeling of belonging that's needed, the reassurance that you're not out there on your own.

Nottingham City Council must have felt like that when just about every other public sector organisation had got involved with the horror story that is the Private Finance Initiative. How they must have longed to share in the dizzy excitement of timetable overruns and ballooning costs.

Happily, NCC has managed to embroil itself in such a scheme and there are reassuring signs that it is conforming to type.

It seems that NCC has started on the long and winding road of setting up a PFI scheme to renew and maintain the City's street lighting.

The thing about One of the many things about PFI is that there is quite a bit of groundwork. You have to get approval from central government, you have to get bidders in and then you have to sort out the detailed specifications of the scheme and sort out the contract. All of which is very complicated and as such requires a lot of money spent on helpful input from consultants.

It seems that the story of this particular scheme started in February 2006 when an Expression of Interest (EoI) was submitted to the Department for Transport (known as DafT to readers of 'Private Eye'). This was then followed up a year later by an 'Outline Business Case' (OBC) and a report submitted to the Executive Board at their meeting in May 2008 recommending that the scheme be pursued.

It doesn't take long for this report to make interesting reading. At para 5.1 it explains that, since the submission of the EoI barely 15 months earlier, the anticipated cost of the scheme increased by £11m to £44.6m. Oh dear.

At para 8.1.c the report states that the development costs to take the project from OBC to completion (that's just completion of setting the contract up remember, it doesn't include so much as changing a light bulb) had increased from £500k to £750k. This doesn't bode well.

The OBC was appended to the report and this included the proposed timescales which anticipated that the contract would be ready to go by 9 April 2009.

Fast forward now to March 2009 and it seems that not everything is going to plan. The development costs have now increased to £950k, an increase of £200k. Cllr Katrina Bull made a portfolio decision to approve this increased expenditure, along with an extension to the timescale which now estimates completion in January 2010. Reasons for this include changes to government rules for such schemes, one of the major banks pulling out (RBS) and one of the bidders taking over another. It's all starting to look a shade dog's dinner fashion.

So now it's March 2010 so everything is signed, sealed and delivered right? Wrong. The development costs have just increased by another £62k requiring another portfolio decision to approve it. Completion date is now expected to be September 2010.

So the original estimate for the full cost of the scheme increased by about 1/3 over the course of about a year without so much as a WTF and now the development costs of just getting the contract in place have increased from the initial estimate of £500k to £1.012m, of which £778k is going to outside consultants.

Is this really the best we can do? It must be said that most of this mess is not NCC's fault but it is of course them (i.e. us) who end up picking up the tab. It also demonstrates one of the many pitfalls in PFI in that it puts more of the risks of any major project on more volatile elements beyond NCC's control, something that doesn't have a happy record in the history of PFI.

I also think it's a bit dodgy that any cost overruns in the development stage are waved through on the stroke of the portfolio holder's pen, a situation that could theoretically continue indefinitely. I would have hoped that, seeing as the damn thing is 18 months behind schedule and has more than doubled in cost that alarm bells would be ringing and the matter would by brought in for more detailed scrutiny.

And of course it's not over yet. Assuming that everything does now go to plan, which I suppose is theoretically possible, the current street lighting workforce will transfer to the new private sector contractor, a process which is often associated with it's own world of pain. Then the contract itself will start and we'll start to find out how the private sector manages to deliver cost savings while making a profit and shelling out for the greater borrowing costs than would be levied on the public sector. Or we find out how much extra we end up paying...

Finally, I'm a bit miffed that, until I saw the most recent cost increase decision and started doing some digging around, I knew absolutely nothing about this. This suggests that very few other Nottingham council tax payers do either, as I don't think it's blowing my own trumpet too much to say that I probably take more notice of such things than the average Nottinghamite. I think this will be one to watch.

More on the Stonebridge Farm Debacle

Signs of a complete lack of joined up thinking at NCC, on the one hand they are shaving land off Stonebridge Farm but on the other the on Tuesday St Anns and Dales Area Committee is being presented with a draft strategy for developing food growing opportunities in Nottingham which very much relies on facillities like, um, Stonebridge Farm.

To be fair the document acknowledges that -

"... until now there has been no central point to bring together all the work regarding food growing taking place across the Council..."

which is probably at least partly why these situations arise.

The 'Protect Stonebridge City Farm' campaign is encouraging interested parties to attend the area committee meeting which is open to the public and is being held at 7pm in the Committee Room at the Council House later today (Tuesday) 26 January. You can also follow their campaign on 'Twitter'.

Talking of Twitter, NCC's Portfolio Holder for Environment and Climate Change Katrina Bull has been tweeting away about her enthusiasm for locally grown veg and wondering aloud whether it would be possible for such local goodies to be served in school dinners.

Obviously this is to be applauded but she's so far been silent on my requests for her views on the Stonebridge issue.

Maybe you'll have more luck, if you do tweeting you can find her @katrinabull.

Now, Now, Children, Stop Swearing

Every now and then I lose the will to live. Ok, pretty much every day I lose the will to live at some point largely because I insist on paying a daily visit to the NCC website to see what our local representatives and their minions have been up to. The arrival of the full council meeting minutes is always good for a little weep as very little actually gets decided, it's more an opportunity for a bit of political argy bargy with planted questions from the nonentity cannon fodder who can't get on any of the committees.

This one caught my eye -

"Councillor Lee asked the following question of the Leader of the Council:–

Would the Leader agree that foul and abusive language in our Parks is unacceptable and would he extend our respect initiative into the City’s Public Parks and Open Spaces?

Councillor Collins replied as follows:-

Thank you Lord Mayor and can I thank Councillor Lee for his question and yes, I do agree that foul and abusive language in our parks is unacceptable and will discuss with the CDP ways that the respect initiative can be extended in the city’s open spaces."

Is this what we want our elected representatives wasting their time on? Nothing better to do than to than try and worm your way into Pope Collins' inner circle? What next, ban farting in the bath?

Councillor Lee is of course one of those who got themselves elected as Lib Dems in the 2003 election at the height of the Iraq War backlash against Labour (and no disrespect to the Lib Dems but in Nottingham they are rather a small pond compared to Labour so a little fish would have a much better chance of being selected). He then defected to Labour via a token period as an Independent to try and make it look like that wasn't what he was planning to do all along. Of course he doesn't mention that little detail in his bio.

To me, and hopefully anybody else who has as much as a passing interest in democracy, that's a hell of a lot more offensive than a bit of swearing in the park. And it's not as if there aren't enough measures already in the various Public Order and Protection from Harassment Acts for the Police to use in appropriate circumstances. And we'll leave it with the police if you don't mind, any of those plastic warden types tries to give me an on-the-spot ticket for swearing will find it re-entering his person via a new bumhole.

Anyway, before Councillor Lee tries to ban swearing in blogs I'd just like to say this. In your stupid potato face Rob Lee you turd-brained turncoat of a twat.

And there is another appearance of the same old 'poor widdle me' passive aggressive silliness I wrote about the other day, this time from Cllr Bull.

Admittedly there were arguably some mitigating circumstances for NCC's hottest councillor, there had been a bit of an ambush of green inked 'questions from the public' and Cllr Bull clearly felt she'd done quite a bit for them already but this sort of thing -

"I have to say though, that I am somewhat disappointed in the questions asked, since I have been working with the group of Churchfield Lane residents directly for over 3 years on these issues."

Well, it's not very dignified is it, kind of a bit schoolma'amish. And she does go on as well, wittering on for seven long paragraphs about all the work she'd done.

Bit of advice. They're not listening. The green ink brigade have their view of the world and nothing you do for them or say will shake it. Keep it simple and factual and get to the pub a bit earlier.

Although I do admit, I did feel a bit sorry for poor old Cllr 'Trembling' Trimble who had to deal with yet another question from Tory Leader Cllr Price on behalf of the exceedingly posh and members-only Wollaton Park Golf Club. Who said class war stereotypes are dead?