Private Finance Initiative
Health

John Hemming (Birmingham, Yardley, Liberal Democrat)

To ask the Secretary of State for Health what the total capital sum is of each of the private finance initiative schemes over £10 million (a) in operation and (b) where the outline business case has been approved for which her Department is responsible; and what the (i) total optimism bias percentage, (ii) net value at commencement and (iii) amount of optimism bias for the public sector comparator is in respect of each scheme.

Jane Kennedy (Minister of State (Quality and Patient Safety), Department of Health; Liverpool, Wavertree, Labour)

Table 1 shows the capital value for all private finance initiative schemes over £10 million which are open. Table 2 shows the capital value for private finance initiative schemes which have reached financial close with work started on site or have advertised in the Official Journal of the European Union. All these schemes have an approved outlined business case.

The requirement to make explicit quantified adjustments for optimism bias in business cases, complementing the risk analysis already undertaken, was announced by Treasury in January 2003 and is applicable to national health service schemes that reached the invitation to negotiate stage from April 2003. Schemes which applied optimism bias are indicated in Table 2. This information is only available for schemes above £25 million. To collect and collate percentages and amounts of optimism for all these schemes could only be provided at disproportionate cost.

⁽²⁹⁾ Optimism bias used