La Private Finance Initiative et les infrastructures scolaires au Royaume-Uni : vingt ans après, quel héritage ?

Abstract

Since the end of the 1990s, local authorities in the UK have taken long-term commitments under public-private financing schemes in order to renew or refurbish their school estate. This article focuses on the legacy of the Private Finance Initiative, which is considered from three different but complementary perspectives: financial, educational and architectural. It highlights the lack of flexibility and the long-term costs of the contracts as well as their consequences on local council finances and school budgets, in a context dominated by austerity policies from 2010 onwards. While local councils have improved their expertise in dealing with such contracts, the imbalance of the relationship between public and private sector partners remains a central issue and has led to an erosion of public authorities’ control and decision-making capacity. Although public-private partnerships have made it possible to complete large-scale school-building programmes and to improve the level of maintenance, the quality of those buildings can be questioned. Lessons have been learnt and local authorities are now turning towards more diverse forms of procurement, in an attempt to ensure greater value for money and to protect the interests of public service users.

Keywords

• PFI
• Non-Profit Distributing
• school infrastructures
• local authorities
• affordability gap
• architectural quality