Following the consultation exercise in April/ May last year, PFU, in conjunction with Planning Services Division, have now published a guidance document addressing PFI and planning issues – Planning Advice Note 55 – The Private Finance Initiative and the Planning Process. All those on our circulation list should have received a copy of the guidance by now. If you are on our circulation list and have not received a copy please let us know.

Regular readers will be aware that new Treasury Taskforce guidance on accounting for PFI was due to issue earlier this year. The long awaited guidance has now published (24 June) and will came into force on 1 July. Announcing the publication, Chief Secretary to the Treasury Alan Milburn said:

"The Governments commitment to partnership between the public and private sector has never been greater. The Government’s new guidelines will make PFI work more effectively and more fairly. This will help deliver higher levels of investment to modernise Britain’s key public services such as the NHS. By providing a platform of certainty, the new guidance will help the PFI continue to grow. Value for money deals go hand in hand with the key test of genuine risk transfer achieved under PFI contracts. This clarity of approach will enable the revised guidance to work in practice. The Treasury’s PFI Interim Accounting Guidance was the basis by which rules were first introduced for determining PFI accounting treatment in September 1997. Last year, the ASB published new principles for making such judgements in an Application Note. The ASB has said that the Revised Accounting Guidance is to be kept under review and updated as necessary in the light of developments in PFI to ensure that it remains both useful in practice and consistent with the ASB’s Application Note."

Copies of the revised guidance are available from the Treasury’s Public Enquiry Unit on 0171 270 4558 or Adrian Murphy on 0171 270 4841.