Sorry i was a bit late to post about this but i thought i'd mention it here, it was on a few weeks ago on dispatches, Liam Halligan presented it. Fairly even handed, was a bit too soft though. Some of the insights into how the PFI industry makes a killing at taxpayers expence is pretty shocking. From what i could tell, this is a huge burden on future generations, but that's my view, what do you guys (and gals) think?

I'm jealous of Liam Halligan's hair.

I sadly was involved in a lot of PFI work before giving up the corporate life to have kids, and frankly I thought it was a con then and think its a down right tyravesty now. Its not saving money its costing more and the company I worked for are making millions on the back of the tax payer (in the case of the projects I worked on it was the council tax payers of London who were stumping up) I am ashamed.

I'm no great fan of PFI, though I think that it may have brought some investment into the public sector that would not otherwise have been available.
I do believe that there are much worse and much more wasteful things happening across the public services: a succession of eye-wateringly expensive IT projects that have delivered very little, a culture of performance measurement that is unduly bureaucratic and bears little relation to the actual experience of the public when receiving services, and most importantly an obsession with market models that are not applicable to the public sector. The whole "choice agenda" is also a disaster: it will excerbate inequality and lower quality.
The tragedy is that having waited for almost twenty years to see increased investment in public services, now that it has come, it has been so badly managed that it will be very difficult to defend it in the future from the attacks of the Right.
The commitment to "localism" of many on the Left is also part of the problem, as are the vested interests of many in the public sector who fight to defend services that don't work rather than engaging with efforts to make them effective.
And the biggest danger is complacency, because Public Sector finances are going to get worse for some time to come.

the backlash from the way a new labour (non-socialist) government has been courting private finance will also be damaging to the long term future of public services.

To be honest i'm not sure if ministers really knew quite what they were actually getting themselves into with PFI. JBoyd certainly there have been cases where PFI has brought quick investmet where before there was none and you're right, there are lot's of other things going on in the public sector that should cause more alarm. Fragmented market based services do nothing to help advance fairness nor equality, infact it probably makes it harder for increased investment to make a real noticable difference across the board, fair enough it always takes time for spending increases to filter to sevices no matter what structure you have in place but by making choice and competition the priority, New Labour are only causing more problems for the future.

I think that the backlash against New Labour will probably lead to Tory government within the next five or six years. And despite the apparent efforts of "Dave from Eton" to sell the country a new cuddly, caring-sharing Conservative Party that will be a disaster for the Public Services. Because the Tories will not, whatever else they do, invest in the Public Sector.

i know

I agree with alot that J Boyd says I'm not a massive PFI fan either but it's the only game in town.

A couple of points David cameron won't change anything of invest in the public sector, despite the image makeover and I don't hate the private sector their profits can be taxed and the money used for the public good.