This month we're asking whether PFI can work. Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time. Unfortunately, the more you look at PFI, the stranger it all gets. On one side, we have a selection of engineers and contractors who say that they have worked on successful PFI projects which have been praised for their standards of design. And who add that in spite of the risk, PFI is a viable business proposition which is good for the construction industry.
On the other hand, read the national press and PFI spells the end of civilisation as we know it. Dodgy dealing by the government to push through its private finance policy come hell or high water; expensive, badly designed buildings with patients stacked on trolleys in corridors paid for by taxpayers; and schools which need bailing out with government cash – or rather our money.

There is a lack of clarity from beginning to end. The main culprit is the government. In its determination to carry through the PFI vision, it has created a scheme laden with confusion for all concerned. Price comparison for example – what would a PFI hospital cost compared with the same one if it were publicly funded? Sounds straightforward, until you realise that there won't be a hospital without PFI. So you're comparing something with, er, nothing. But obliging civil servants have been filling in the forms they're supposed to, seemingly pulling figures out of thin air.

The same goes for comparisons of quality. 'If this had been publicly funded,' say PFI detractors, 'it would have been so much better designed'. Hmm. That word 'if' again. Without PFI there wouldn't be a hospital so it's hard to say how it would have looked, except in some utopian dream of 21st Century Britain. And just how great are those hospitals which were paid for with public money?

This kind of nonsensical comparison and sleight of hand has caused major problems for construction companies involved in PFI projects. Some large corporates have seen profits cut by changes in the way PFI is costed; others have seen directors labelled fat cats, growing rich by building shoddy hospitals and schools which will eventually cost the tax payer even more money to put right.

It does look as though construction companies involved in PFI are not only carrying the cost of the projects, they are also bearing the brunt of bad publicity. Controversy over design and cost should be laid at the government's door, at least in part. The construction industry doesn't make the rules, it is just trying to play by them.