The PFI/PPP market is facing a potential crisis. The collapse of Railtrack has intensified the debate over the role of private money in providing public services just as the most controversial public/private project, London Underground, approaches its denouement. The timing could hardly have been worse.
Despite the fact that Railtrack was a straight privatisation rather than a PFI or PPP scheme, the actions of Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions, Stephen Byers, in putting the railway operator into administration without investor compensation demonstrates either the folly of mixing private money and public services, or a cavalier attitude to private finance depending on which side of the debate you sit on.
