Supplementary memorandum submitted by
HM Treasury
Question 97 (Mr Richard Bacon): Annual
unitary charge payments
Further to earlier exchanges about the whole-life
cost of PFI contracts, the Committee wanted to know how much of
the total unitary charges were made up of capital payments.
Taking no account of inflation or time preference,
the sum total of unitary charge payments over the next 30 years
is £180.7 billion based on the latest published data from
November 2007. I have previously emphasised to the committee—and
will not labour the point here—that this figure is not meaningful
as it adds together numbers in money of very different years;
expressed in today's terms, using the standard discounting methodology,
the aggregate total is £99.9 billion.
This £99.9 billion in present-value unitary
charge payments relates to assets with a total capital value of
£56.9 billion (under accounting rules set by the independent
bodies, £23.9 billion of this capital is considered to be
on the public sector's balance sheet). The £99.9 billion
also includes payment for the associated services, such as cleaning,
catering and maintenance, associated with running these assets.
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