The pressure to privatise comes in four forms. Firstly CCT has been replaced by Best Value. The best value regime, drafted by civil servants who are still influenced by Thatcherism, emphasises the third c in the regime, compete . It is all too easy to read into the best value process an obligation, not just to keep an open mind about who might deliver the services, but positively to prefer the private sector option to any in-house alternative. The second pressure comes from financial controls.
Capital spending remains tightly controlled.
In the Finance Green Paper issued last year, the government proposed a prudential framework which would allow local authorities greater freedom to borrow where, through the investment, they would generate sufficient revenue streams to cover the cost of borrowing. But we are still waiting for the details and implementation of this reform. If the proposal is not in the Queen s Speech immediately after the election, it will be 2004 before it is implemented. Meanwhile the IPPR set up a commission in 1999 to explore PPPs that will report immediately after the election. It looks like this will conclude that there is no macro-economic case for PFI and that there are some doubts about the value for money of some of the large schemes in health and education.