The Private Finance Initiative in the UK

(De)Politicization Dynamics in Public–Private Partnerships (PPPs): Lessons from a comparison between UK and Flemish PPP policy

“…This trend was driven by a combination of governments being in budgetary distress due to the crises of the 1970s, financial investors being able to operate in a global capital market, large construction firms becoming internationally active and powerful lobby groups promoting the private financing, constructing and operating of infrastructure projects (Roberts 2010, 121-122). The private financing of public infrastructure significantly increased in the UK due to the expansion of the PFI under the 'New Labour' Government of Tony Blair in the late 1990s (Ball, Heafey, and King 2007;Burnham 2001;Flinders 2005). Other countries worldwide followed the same path.…”

“…Although the British PFI model was enthusiastically transferred to other countries worldwide, it has always been rather controversial in the UK both in the academic literature (e.g. Ball, Heafey, and King 2007;Flinders 2005;Shaoul 2005Shaoul , 2010Shaoul, Stafford, and Stapleton 2011) and in the press (e.g. John Kay in Financial Times, 16 February 2011 and 31 January 1997).…”

Public‐Private Partnerships: Governance Scheme or Language Game?

“…At the other end is the contrast provided by more recent evidence from Shaoul (2005) and Ball, Heafey and King (2007). For example, Shaoul (2005) presents a litany of failed PFI project examples, a VfM appraisal methodology biased in favour of policy expansion, pitiful availability of information for scrutiny, and projects in which the VfM case rested almost entirely on risk transfer but for which, strangely, the amount of risk transferred was almost exactly what was needed to tip the balance in favour of applying the PFI mechanism.…”

“…Ball, Heafey and King (2007) add fuel to this fire. They note the flimsy risk analyses undertaken through in‐house ‘brainstorming’ exercises and criticise these as ‘almost entirely subjective’ with little attempt to produce data based on historical or benchmarked sources.…”

Do Public-Private Partnerships Create Value for Money for the Public Sector? The Portuguese Experience

“…According to Kintoye et al (2002), as quoted in Ball et al (2007), the lack of transparency in public-private partnerships risk evaluation constitutes an area of serious concern. The public sector comparator inevitably focuses on factors that can be easily quantified and expressed in monetary terms.…”