HC Deb 19 June 2000 vol 352 cc9-10W
Mr. Jim Cunningham

To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions how many local authority private finance initiative schemes(a) are in progress, (b) have been completed and (c) are currently awaiting approval by region, what is the (i) average cost per scheme and (ii) overall cost of approved schemes to date; how many of each type of scheme (1) have been approved, (2) are awaiting approval and (3) have been turned down; and what type of scheme has been approved in each region. [126106]

Ms Beverley Hughes

The information is as follows:

  1. (a) 126 local authority PH schemes have been endorsed by the inter-departmental Project Review Group. This means that they have been awarded central government financial support and that the local authorities concerned can proceed with the procurement for their schemes.
  2. (b) 38 schemes have reached contract signature and of these, 23 are in operation.
  3. (c) About 35 schemes are currently awaiting approval. The breakdown of these schemes by region is:

Region Number
Eastern 3
East Midlands 3
London 4
North East 3
North West 7
South East 6
South West 1
West Midlands 5
Yorkshire and The Humber 3
  1. (i) The average cost per scheme of all the schemes endorsed so far is approximately £20 million. However, the schemes vary greatly in size, scope and type of service provided and the costs of individual schemes range from less than £1 million to more than £100 million.
  2. (ii) The overall cost of all the endorsed schemes is approximately £2.5 billion.
  3. (1) The breakdown of endorsed schemes by type of scheme is:
Scheme Number
Depot and Vehicle Services 2
Fire Service 6
Housing 13
Information Communication and Technology 6
Leisure 2
Magistrates Courts 6
Police schemes 14
Property rationalisation and libraries 10
Residential homes and other social services 11
Schools 43
Transport and street lighting 6
Waste Management 7
Total 126
(2)How many of each type of scheme are awaiting approval:
Scheme Number
Housing 2
Information Communication and Technology 2
Leisure 6
Schools 7
Transport and street lighting 7
Waste management 3
Cross-agency 8
Total 35
(3) All schemes which are selected for assessment need to satisfy various criteria. There are a number of stages in the approval process and schemes may be turned down at any of these stages. Records are not kept of the number of schemes that are turned down.

Mr. Jim Cunningham

To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions how many local authorities have initiated PH schemes; and if he will make a statement. [126107]

Ms Beverley Hughes

86 local authorities, including fire, police and waste authorities and one passenger transport executive, have initiated PH schemes that have been endorsed by the inter-departmental Project Review Group. The total number of endorsed local authority PH schemes is 126. It should be noted that these figures exclude PFI schemes that are financially free standing or which do not require central government revenue support.