Press Releases for 2004

GREENS AGREE WITH SANDY: 'PRIVATE FINANCE INITIATIVE MUST GO'

14th June 2004

East Kent Greens support KCC leader, Sandy Bruce-Lockhart, in his recent call for an end to the Private Finance Initiative. As he correctly points out, it is more expensive and less flexible than other methods of financing services in Kent. Steve Dawe notes:

"Experts on local government and public services have been uniformly critical about the use of private finance in public services (1). There has always been a danger of excessive long-term costs when the Private Finance Initiative (PFI) is in use. PFI projects consistently cost more than ordinary public or local government spending and are often associated with loss of jobs, or reductions in numbers of hospitals to the point where access becomes more difficult for patients(2). If public funds are to be used to support the private sector, then they need to be concentrated on things which create new useful employment in Kent.

We have seen growth in low-paid retail employment, but much less so in jobs with higher social value or better incomes. Not wasting money on PFI would free up money to support:

* Organic agriculture and the development of new farmers' markets

* Energy from biomass such as coppicing, and use of waste cooking oil

to make bio-diesel * Co-operatives, to help keep small businesses of the same type

operating through merging them into cooperatives, or by creating new cooperative enterprises

* Energy conservation and renewable technology businesses

ENDS c243 words

FURTHER INFORMATION: Steve Dawe, Press Officer, 01233 645167 or 07904 382203. Steve Dawe teaches environmental policy, sociology and international development for the Open Univesity. He is also a Co-Secretary of the South East Confederation of Green Parties, which supports the work of recently re-elected SE MEP, Caroline Lucas. Notes: 1. See David Wilson and Chris Game Local Government in the United Kingdom (Palgrave, 2002) & Dexter Whitfield Public Services or Corporate Welfare (Pluto Press, 2001). 2. George Monbiot The Captive State: the corporate takeover of Britain (Macmillan, 2000).

Site design and
management by

providers of

designed for

using

Computers

and VALID

Updated by
Philip
27th March 2005