Lack of transparency over outsourcing deals leaves taxpayers in dark, study warns

Research conducted by the University of Leeds has found gaps in disclosure

Police are among one of the authorities who received FOIs regarding their PFIs (Getty/iStock)

Taxpayers are being left in the dark about public services that have been outsourced because of limitations in information laws, experts warn.

Analysis of hundreds of requests to public authorities about privately funded projects under freedom of information laws did not lead to a full disclosure of information. Nearly half gave no details at all – despite the information asked for being related to safety or as basic as the number of buildings involved in the Privately Funded Initiative (PFI) projects.

PFI projects are worth hundreds of billions of pounds, across public bodies including the government, local authorities, the NHS and police.

Co-author Dr Stuart Hodkinson, Associate Professor at the University of Leeds, said: “The profound difficulty in uncovering even the most basic information about PFI contracts shines a light on the current accountability vacuum for PFI schemes...Our findings show that currently the law is too weak to be effective and is being flagrantly ignored by public bodies.”

Outsourcing has been widely criticised since PFIs appeared in 1992, particularly in the wake of the Grenfell Tower tragedy and the collapse of Carillion. In 2018 then chancellor Phillip Hammond announced new PFIs would be blocked, but there are still 715 existing PFI projects worth billions across 331 public authorities in the UK.

The investigation, published in Parliamentary Affairs, detailed 687 FOIs being sent between 2016 and 2017 to 315 public authorities with PFI contracts, including, governmental departments, NHS Trusts, councils, and local police and fire services.

The team behind the study is calling for reform of the Freedom of Information Act, including boosting powers of enforcement for the Information Commissioner.

Andrew Slaughter, the Labour Hammersmith MP who has campaigned for better FoI laws, said: “There is growing support for updating the Freedom of Information Act to take account of the growth in outsourcing…This paper provides the evidence and analysis to support the campaign. I hope the new Government will look seriously at reforming and improving public access to information.”

The Cabinet Office said it was publishing more data than ever before and that contractors must comply with requests from public authorities under current legislation.