Jury still out on PFI

James Duncan appears to have fallen for the myth that the SNP abolished PFI (Letters, 9 August).

In 2006 Alex Salmond told Scotland that “PFI was a quick fix and a costly mistake”. If elected, he was going to ensure “our public assets can be held in trust for the nation all without the unnecessary private profit that is part and parcel of PFI”.

Forget the fact that “unnecessary private profit” was never defined, this was about bashing Labour.

In their 2007 manifesto, the SNP said: “The Private Finance Initiative was devised by the Tories and has been embraced with enthusiasm by New Labour. However it is really a type of privatisation, with all the disadvantages which that entails.”

Of course, the same manifesto was less clear on what the SNP alternative was. The public perception soon became that PFI was abolished.

In reality, it had been replaced by the SNP’S ‘NPD’ (non-profit distributing) model. Progress was slow, but by 2011 peer reviewed research stated it came at “high economic cost” – it concluded: “The argument of the Cabinet Secretary that NPD will eliminate ‘excessive profits’ is not supported by the evidence.”

In July 2016 the alarm bells began to ring quite loudly when reports were published that the programme will cost the taxpayer £10 billion in borrowing and running costs between now and 2048.

The same document quoted a leaked SNP Govern- ment memo concerning the projects: “Any perception of public sector control over the [project] delivery company must be avoided.”

More recently, details of the Dumfries Hospital have come to light. This project cost £212m to build, but the interest on the loan tops £160m.

Little wonder that Audit Scotland have launched an inquiry into the SNP’S rebranded PFI.

PROF SCOTT ARTHUR Buckstone Gardens, Edinburgh