http://www.cipfa.org.uk/publicfinance/features_details.cfm?news_id=28218
Don Smith
"The PFI faces a combined attack from national statisticians and influential accountancy bodies. There is a lot at stake, including the chancellor’s fiscal rules. Opponents of the Private Finance Initiative have long argued that the popularity of this funding method has a great deal to do with its tendency to be off balance sheet and its non-appearance in national debt figures. Well, their analysis is about to get truly tested. The Office for National Statistics has said that it intends to include some of the money invested through PFI projects in the figures for national debt. Currently, privately financed projects do not score in the main indicator for assessing the UK’s public finances – public sector net debt. This is so regardless of whether the borrowing is formally on the balance sheet or off it."
