Signed, Sealed, Still Paying: The PFI Bill Hidden in Plain Sight

There is a particular kind of silence that surrounds a council budget when the money has already been promised. It is not the silence of a difficult choice being made. It is the silence of a choice made long ago, locked into a contract, indexed to inflation and paid for by residents who were never asked to approve it.

Private Finance Initiative deals were sold as a way to build schools, hospitals, roads and waste plants without upfront capital. The bills were spread across decades. Some of those decades have now passed. The buildings remain. So do the payments. In 2026, with councils across the UK cutting services and warning of further pressures, the PFI tail is still wagging the budget dog.

This is not a call to repudiate every contract or to pretend that all infrastructure built under PFI was worthless. It is a demand for transparency. If a council is still paying for a deal signed before many of its current councillors were elected, residents should be able to see the contract, the annual charge, the expiry date and the exit cost. That is the minimum price of democratic accountability.

Why PFI is a live budget issue now

The argument that PFI is ancient history does not survive contact with a statement of accounts. Many deals run into the 2030s and 2040s. Unitary charges often include not only the building but maintenance, cleaning, catering and other services. Some contracts have inflation indexation that makes the annual payment rise even when the council’s grant does not. Some carry termination liabilities that would make early exit ruinous.

Councils are not passive victims of arithmetic. They make choices about how to disclose these obligations. A contract register may list a PFI scheme by name but omit the payment schedule. A statement of accounts may include a note on service concessions without explaining which services, which contractor or which years remain. A budget book may show a line for PFI but not the total remaining commitment. The result is a public conversation about cuts that rarely names one of the largest fixed costs in the room.

The demand is simple: publish a full PFI liability register alongside the budget. Not a glossy summary. A register that lists each scheme, the contractor, the annual unitary charge, the indexation method, the expiry date, the remaining payment estimate and any termination liability. If commercial confidentiality prevents full disclosure, publish the maximum possible and explain the redactions.

Follow the paper trail

Start with the statement of accounts. Search for the terms PFI, Private Finance Initiative, public-private partnership, service concession and off-balance-sheet. Read the notes on commitments and contingent liabilities. Look for future minimum payments and the accounting treatment. Do not assume that a scheme is absent because it is not called PFI. Some deals were rebadged.

Then go to the council’s contract register and procurement records. Find the medium-term financial strategy and the revenue budget. Search the budget book for PFI lines and for related facilities management costs. Read the minutes of cabinet, scrutiny and audit committees. PFI often appears in a risk register or an auditor’s report before it appears in a public campaign.

Make a Freedom of Information request for the contract, the payment schedule and the performance deduction regime. Ask for the termination liability calculation. Ask for the latest benchmarking report and any correspondence about contract variations. Be specific about dates and scheme names. A narrow request is harder to refuse than a broad demand for everything.

Calculate the burden, honestly

Build a table with one row per scheme. Record the annual charge, the financial year, the indexation formula and the expiry date. Add the remaining payments as set out in the accounts, but label them clearly. A remaining payment total is not the same as an accounting liability. Do not mix the two. If the council has not published the numbers, say so and ask for them.

Then compare the PFI charge with discretionary spending. How many libraries, youth centres or road repairs would the annual payment fund? This is not a simplistic argument that PFI alone caused the crisis. It is a way to make an abstract contract visible. Residents understand a fixed bill that must be paid before anything else.

Make it political

Send the table to every councillor before the next budget vote. Ask the scrutiny committee to examine the PFI register. Ask the audit committee whether the liabilities are being reported clearly. Ask candidates and party groups whether they will commit to full disclosure. Put the question at full council. Use the local press, but give them documents rather than adjectives.

A council that cannot explain its PFI bill cannot credibly explain its choices. The contracts may be signed and sealed. The obligation to account for them is not. Publish the register, open the books and let residents see what is still being paid for.