PPP expert to head Scots Futures Trust

15 Jun 09
An expert on public-private partnership schemes is to head the Scottish Futures Trust, the body set up to replace the Private Finance Initiative for the financing of projects such as schools and hospitals.

By David Scott in Edinburgh

An expert on public-private partnership schemes is to head the Scottish Futures Trust, the body set up to replace the Private Finance Initiative for the financing of projects such as schools and hospitals.

An expert on public-private partnership schemes is to head the Scottish Futures Trust, the body set up to replace the Private Finance Initiative for the financing of projects such as schools and hospitals.

The Scottish Government announced the appointment of Barry White as chief executive of the SFT on April 8 on a salary of £180,000. He is currently head of BAM PPP, a company that manages partnership projects.

Labour and the Liberal Democrats immediately pointed to the ‘irony’ of the Scottish National Party administration appointing a private sector advocate of schemes that the party had condemned as ‘wasteful and costly’ during the 2007 Scottish election campaign.

Since the election, the government has been forced to amend its plans to ditch PFI/PPP.

Instead it intends using a not-for-profit mechanism that limits the profit companies can make on contracts for public sector construction projects.

Labour finance spokesman Andy Kerr claimed the SNP had ‘finally come to terms with the fact that their Futures Trust is nothing more than PPP by any other name’.

Jeremy Purvis, of the Liberal Democrats, said of White’s appointment: ‘This highlights more than anything else the confused thinking and chaotic handling of the Futures Trust.’

Finance Secretary John Swinney argued that White had significant experience of capital investment in public infrastructure and would make a substantial contribution to improving the value for money of public investment in Scotland.

He said: ‘I look forward to that experience now being deployed to deliver greater value for money for the public purse in capital investment, which is the core purpose of the SFT.’

Questions have persisted over the SFT’s future. Sir Angus Grossart was appointed chair last September but the board has met only twice.

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