Avon & Somerset Police PFI - Full Business Case

Dear Her Majesty’s Treasury,

I would like a copy of the Avon & Somerset Police PFI (Project Ref
822 Modernise Police Estate) with only genuinely commercial in
confidence and margin sensitive information redacted.

PFI Project totals should not be redacted.

I want to know:

a) The total cost of the PFI payments over the 25 years?

b) The forecast value of the PFI assets at the end of the 25 years?

c) The impact of the PFI payments on the revenue budget for Police
(at a time when austerity cuts are being made by Government)?

d) The capital impact on the Police budget of this off balance
sheet borrowing?

e) The risk of applying RPI inflation to payments, when most other
inflation linked payments are being reduced to CPI e.g. pensions,
benefits etc.

Yours faithfully,

Dave Orr

Dear Her Majesty’s Treasury,

Please pass this on to the person who conducts Freedom of
Information reviews.

I am writing to request an internal review of Her Majesty’s
Treasury's handling of my FOI request 'Avon & Somerset Police PFI -
Full Business Case'.

In my FOI request, I clearly explained that no member of the public
in Avon & Somerset Police area could assess the basic financial
facts about this PFI, as every total figure has been redacted.

The link you have provided leads to the redacted business case that
caused me to raise the FOI in the first place! Not very helpful.

On Page 8 for example, even the high level PFI/Project totals have
been redacted and they cannot be commercial in confidence (ICO ref
Notts CC v Veolia).

http://www.aspola.org.uk/cache/PDF/Docum...

There is a great deal of public concern about debt and the value
for money in many PFI deals has been shown to be poor.

In the NHS there are regular reports about huge amounts of the
revenue budget for sick people and the Doctors & Nurses to heasl
them going into excessive PFI payments and high monopoly
operational charges.

Avon & Somerset Police is a uniformed service and the culture of
FOI disclosure is in my view defensive and not on a par with local
Councils FOI disclosure culture by comparison.

If every total measure of the Avon & Somerset Police PFI Business
Case is defensively redacted with an overuse of exemptions, then
the public will only be able to verify the value for money in this
PFI deal AFTER the deal is closed i.e. too late for intervention!

Is that the intention then - keep all numbers hidden from view &
scrutiny until the deal is irrevocably done?

How can "Big Society" or "Localism" or to quote Rt Hon Eric Pickles
"an army of armchair auditors" operate if this excessive level of
secrecy is supported & maintained by key Governmnet departments
like the Treasury and the Home Office?

On the basic public interest test that this level of redaction is
excessive and the use of so many exemptions to even non-commercial
project/PFI totals is unreasonable, I ask for an Internal Review to
lead to the publication of a version of the Business Case that
permits reasonable & proper public scrutiny.

Please note that I will take this to the ICO for adjudication if
the Treasury & Home Offiec continue to support this excessive level
of redaction through the Internal Review process.

A full history of my FOI request and all correspondence is
available on the Internet at this address:
http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/av...

Yours faithfully,

Dave Orr