Is the jury still out on PFI contracts?

Last September Andrew Lansley claimed that some NHS Trusts occupying PFI healthcare facilities had been 'landed with deals they could not afford', seemingly attributing much of the blame for a scenario where the Department of Health said 22 Trusts in England alone could be at significant financial risk to Labour, which, in the 1990s, greatly expanded a public/private funding partnership originally introduced by the Tories a decade earlier. Two key factors critics claim have put such Trusts 'at risk' are the 'inflexibility' of some PFI contracts, which makes varying terms difficult mid-contract, and the fact that many of the earlier deals were inexpertly negotiated by the 'public sector side'. HEJ editor Jonathan Baillie sought the views of Malcolm Austwick, a partner at top commercial law firm, DAC Beachcroft (see panel below), with extensive experience in the legal complexities of PFI, on whether or not the initiative's 'pros' do indeed outweigh the 'cons'.