I’ve had to add a bit of detail to BBC Scotland’s coverage of its:
PFI ‘buy back’ deals to cost taxpayer millions
today. I thought readers might like to know who got us into this mess in case they think it must be the current government, that SNP one.
Andrew Pickens does tell you 10 paragraphs down (Still reading? I thought not.):
PFI was introduced by John Major’s Conservative government but Labour was the biggest supporter of the controversial financing model.
It meant the upfront cost of building such as schools and hospitals was taken on by the private sector in return for repayments to cover construction and maintenance, typically over a 25-year period.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-66543735
So, for reasons of accuracy and clarity here are the first 10 again:
Tens of millions of pounds will be needed to be raised by the current SNP Government to bring public buildings built using private finance loved by the Labour Party that is hoping to win the Rutherglen and Hamilton West by-election by hiding this sort of eff up, into state hands.
Scores of buildings, such as schools, have been built across Scotland using the Private Finance Initiative (PFI) model loved by the Labour Party when they were in government, where firms construct and maintain buildings for a whopping annual fee.
At the end of the majority of these New Labour deals the facilities are simply handed over to the public bodies using them.
But this is not the case in 11 New Labour PFI contracts expiring in the coming years.
Research by BBC Scotland News shows these New Labour deals contain clauses stupidly approved by Labour which mean public bodies will need to pay the PFI provider a fee or market value for the property if they want to take full control of the building when the contract ends.
The Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh, Wishaw General in Lanarkshire, five high schools in Falkirk and two Scottish Water waste plants are among the affected facilities.
Critics point out that some of the PFI operators have banked repayments over the length of these deals at up to 10 times the original cost of building the facilities thanks to Labour politicians being thick or lazy.
Unison Scottish secretary Lilian Macer said: “These PFI buyback clauses are quite frankly a Labour Party scandal. Private firms have already been handsomely paid by the taxpayer over the course of the contract, forced on the councils by Labour.
“Once you pay up your mortgage you don’t then have to pay a penalty clause to own your home. At the very least it should be the same for public services. Try telling that to Gordon Brown, Labour Chancellor at the time“
Gordon Brown?
Talking-up Scotland 'Albatraz' 
Great Britain GB Gordon Brown ‘nomen est omen’, the ‘bard of Britishness as Tom Nairn called him, ‘British jobs for British workers’ Brown, he of the Vow and ‘the ‘nearest thing to federalism’, he of ‘Britain needs to stop apologising for the Empire’, the man who wanted to be Prime Minister because he wanted to be Prime Minister, the man who believed he ‘saved the World’ (Freudian slip or not) the man of ‘pooling and sharing’, Better Together and These Islands.
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Gordon Brown liked PFI because using it meant he could keep the cost ‘off the books’ thus UK finances looked better and he became ‘Prudence’. Then the EU stepped in and put a stop to the ‘off the books’ scam. Thereafter the UK’s finances did hot look so great.
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The ‘see more’ button isn’t live.
Sent from my Xperia by Sony smartphone
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LETS ALSO NOT FORGET THAT BLAIR AN BROWN WERE IN CONTROL OF ALL
GOVERNMENT SPENDING
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PFI…Labour’s LEGACY in Scotland….DEBT…huge cost to taxpayers…..and as a REAL scandal one that is not given the publicity and outrage it truly deserves….mainly because tis WRONG party(s) that would be targeted via media…..it started as an initiative via the Tories and lo and behold , as sure as night follows day, along came Labour and picked up the baton AGAIN in adopting THIS as yet ANOTHER Tory now Labour policy……
Alas many in Scotland are unaware of negative consequences for Scotland that this has resulted in…..indeed some may even think, if they are/were indeed more aware of it as a negative…that is then assumed to be yet another #SNPBAD…..via the clever omitting of certain parties involvement in this scandal by the media….(though as a scandal tis not one that consumes the media via either their collective attention or indeed their condemnation…as they have another FISH to FRY…aka the SNP)
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I wonder how much Gordon brown made out of it
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PFI “keeping it off the books” mean these costs not counting as public spending which meant reduced stipends under Barnett, ergo, a double whammy for Scotland.
Scottish Labour, a snake in the socialist woodpile. Only a fool would vote for them now.
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