UK outsourcing expands despite high failure rates

The number of PPP strategic partnerships has increased 35% in just two years with 18 additional contracts valued at £8bn. 60 contracts are currently operating, four were terminated and one completed the contract term, but was not renewed. A further two are being terminated in 2014. Strategic partnerships originated in ICT and corporate services, but have extended into planning, education, police, fire and rescue and property services. The failure rate is very high - nearly one in four contracts are either terminated, reduce scope as services are brought back in-house, and/or suffer major financial and operational problems. Savings, new business and new jobs targets continue to be illusive. Read the sixth edition of the PPP database here:
http://www.european-services-strategy.org.uk/news/uk-outsourcing-expands-despite-high-failure-ra/ppp-strategic-partnerships-database-2012-2013.pdf

Osborne to raid LGPS funds to finance PFI-type Infrastructure Projects?

The Treasury has been in discussions with the Local Government Association to establish how the money we pay into the Local Government Pension Funds could be used to finance the rebuilding of schools, bridges, hospitals – these are known as infrastructure projects. Publishing the Government’s response to its report into Private Finance Initiative (PFI) funding, the Treasury Select Committee says the National Infrastructure Plan supporting 500 projects and programmes worth £250bn, involves further risks in the form of additional government liabilities and guarantees: http://www.localgov.co.uk/index.cfm?method=news.detail&id=104564

10 myths of Public Private Partnerships (PPPs)

The European Federation of Public Service Unions (EPSU) has published a useful briefing which demolishes the myths about PPP's - in a nutshell they don't supplement public spending they absorb it: http://www.epsu.org/a/8193

Claims don't match reality of 'strategic partnerships‏'

As Edinburgh's unions fought off a bid last week for partnership (privatisation) of the council's Environmental Services, the latest European Services Strategy Unit/PPP Database shows "evidence of a large credibility gap between the claims of strategic partnerships in procurement and the reality of high-cost, high-risk, and low performance contracts", according to Dexter Whitfield. http://www.european-services-strategy.org.uk/ppp-database/