Chamber and committees

You said that the Scottish Futures Trust is helping those public bodies—local authorities or whatever—to manage the transition at the end of the contracts. You also said that 22 PFI contracts are coming up. Have you identified any particular years in which a larger number of those contracts might be coming up? Obviously, that will lead to greater risk. Indeed, is there any particular part or area of Scotland that is particularly at risk?

We have heard the frightening figures on backlog maintenance, but how much of that would be dealt with by the new builds that are in the pipeline? Obviously, there is a timing issue but, if you are going to build a new building—a new hospital or whatever—the old one’s backlog maintenance goes out the picture.

I am looking primarily at paragraphs 17, 18 and 19 of the briefing paper. Paragraph 19 states:

“There have been no new private-financed projects since 2018 and the Scottish Government has no immediate plans to fund infrastructure in this way.”

However, as has been mentioned, the capital budget has been cut, and I believe that it is anticipated that it might be cut again this year. That will put a lot of pressure on the Government in relation to how it delivers projects.

Private finance is obviously more expensive, especially at the moment. Despite the greater cost of private finance, the briefing paper states that the Scottish Government

“cannot rule out using alternative financing arrangements to deliver investment beyond its capital budget.”

Does that give you any cause for concern?

Other than that general comment, there is no indication that the Government is going to go down that road.

Paragraphs 30 to 32 of the briefing paper talk about the number of private finance contracts in Scotland. The paper says that there are 130 with a capital value of £9 billion. You have also highlighted the point that 22 PFI contracts with a value of £900 million will end by 2030. There is quite a difference in the PFI contracts and what happens at the end of them, such as whether there is a purchase agreement.

Some of those 130 contracts will still have a life of 20 years or so in them and others will have rather less. They are individual contracts, but what is behind them? For example, a school might be built with a PFI contract, but my understanding is that there was a degree of bundling at some points. Are any of those 130 contracts bundled contracts that would have greater value and therefore greater risk when they come to maturity?

Do we have any risk analysis of those individual projects? The financial risk involved at the end of the project will be different for all of them.

Over the years, the college estate has come up repeatedly in your reports, auditor general. In fact, it is not just the college estate; the issues seem to apply across the board in the public sector. Maintenance and so forth has fallen well behind. You say in your briefing that your report “Scotland’s Colleges 2022”

“noted that capital funding for the college sector was £321 million short of requirements for lifecycle and backlog maintenance”.

That is a lot of bucks. Given that those issues have been highlighted so often, is there any progress towards tackling them? Is there any real understanding and management of them?

You state in your report that the SFC has made available £4.7 million for health and safety but that it has bids of about £20 million. How is that going to work?

I will return to something that Graham Simpson touched on, with regard to arm’s-length foundations. Are colleges channelling their commercial income into ALFs? The original intention was to keep it out of the public purse.

Is there any thought of doing that?