They don't want the taxpayer being ultimately responsible for the risk as they would be under Mr Kiley's vision. The Treasury's argument is that although the work would inevitably cost much more if done by profit-making, private firms, this would be recouped be heightened efficiency of private managers. Ministers are concerned that public sector management is irreparably inefficient. They point to the Jubilee line extension which doubled in cost to 3.5bn and was completed 18 months late. The government are also concerned that if PPP were not adopted, it would also leave Aslef, the train driver's union, in a powerful position, as it showed earlier this month by just about closing the entire network for a day.
Frustration is the dominant emotion from the four consortiums left in the running.
There are noises of some degree of flexibility coming from the firms about tweaking PPP but not anywhere near the scale of change wanted by Mr Kiley. They definitely don't want to pour millions into a business if it is controlled by someone else. There are also complaints that any major deviation from the original plan would cause crippling delays as firms would have to tender their bids again. However, no one is going to walk away just yet, as doing so would mean losing the potential 30m in compensation each bidder is entitled to if PPP does not go ahead. Although the existing infrastructure is not quite that old, much of it does date back to the 1920s and it is just not able to cope with today's daily commuters, which number in the hundreds of thousands.