ACCOUNTABILITY AND VALUE FOR MONEY IN PRIVATE FINANCE INITIATIVE CONTRACTS |
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| Authors: | Istemi Demirag Iqbal Khadaroo |
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| Institution: | 1. Management School, Queen's University Belfast;2. The authors are from the Management School, Queen's University Belfast. They acknowedge with thanks the helpful comments received from Sara Fyson, Noel Hyndman, Pamela Stapleton, Ciarán Connolly, and from participants at the European Accounting Association Conference, Dublin, 22–24 March, 2006;3. and Research Seminar at Waterford Institute of Technology on 8 March, 2007. They also acknowledge constructive suggestions made on the earlier versions of this paper by two anonymous referees of this journal. All errors remain the authors' responsibility. |
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| Abstract: | Within the context of New Public Management (NPM), successive UK governments have claimed that PFI projects provide more accountability, and arguably, more value for money (VFM) than conventional procurement for the public ( HM Treasury 1995, 2000, 2003a and 2003b ). However, recent empirical research in the UK on PFI has indicated its potential limitations for accountability and VFM ( Broadbent, Gill and Laughlin, 2004 ; Edwards, Shaoul, Stafford and Arblaster, 2004 ; Shaoul, 2005 ; and Ismail and Pendlebury, 2006 ) albeit these are based on either published accounts or a limited number of key stakeholders. This paper attempts to partially redress this gap in the literature by presenting an interesting case of the impact of PFI on accountability and VFM in Northern Ireland's education sector. The findings of this research, based on forty two interviews with a wide range of key stakeholders, suggest that stakeholders have different and often conflicting expectations and the actual PFI accountability and VFM benefits are much more obfuscated than those claimed in Government publications. |
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| Keywords: | accountability value for money PFI NPM UK Treasury |
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