Neil Grundon, deputy chairman of Grundon Waste Management, says it’s time to adopt a different development model to PFI, one which puts waste management companies at the heart of building a bright new future for the industry.
In 2009, I wrote to Lord Mandelson asking him to investigate the use of Private Finance Initiative (PFI) credits for waste management projects. I felt that at the time, the system was effectively disbarring regional companies like ours from bidding for any municipal contracts due to procurement rules on company turnover.
In the interests of demonstrating this was an entirely apolitical point I was making, I also sent copies of the letter to fellow MPs John Redwood and Frank Field, both of whom had publically expressed concerns at the PFI model in place.
Needless to say, my efforts fell on deaf ears, although after a prompt I did eventually receive a reply from Mr Redwood who expressed sympathy at least.
The net result of nothing changing was that successful bidders for these PFI contracts tended to be foreign companies who had benefited from Compulsory Competitive Tendering (CCT) rules to inveigle their way into the UK market and then swept up many of our smaller players.
It is true that in subsequent years the Chancellor did start putting the brake on any new procurement, but I felt it was a question of too little too late.
I want a future where we can reach out to apprentices and young engineers and encourage them to join this vibrant environmentally exciting and technologically innovating industry of ours, to promote ourselves to the colleges and universities that set them on that road to future career success.
Fast forward nearly a decade since my mutterings first began and you will forgive me a little cheering and metaphorical red flag waving to Messrs Corbyn and McDonnell as they seek to replace the PFI model at last.
True, their focus is very much on renationalisation of services such as the railways, energy and water, which is clearly a wholly different avenue.
As a highly-successful, privately-owned family business, I’m not about to start down that route.
What I do want to see though, is a new model for the waste management industry. One which considers the wider supply chain that plays such an important role in our everyday business: the vehicle and equipment manufacturers; the reprocessors; the scientists and the end user partners.
I want a future where we can reach out to apprentices and young engineers and encourage them to join this vibrant environmentally exciting and technologically innovating industry of ours, to promote ourselves to the colleges and universities that set them on that road to future career success.
To achieve all these things however, we need to do things differently and I’d like to see a model where we no longer procure on price – be it euros (for which read old money francs and deutschmarks) or dollars – but a solid plan.
And yes, we know tensions between the private and public sectors in our industry have always been uneasy, from CCT to the advent of the teckal, the relationship has never been a bed of roses.
But it can be done, as evidenced in socialist France where the private waste sector has somehow managed to retain an important presence and, with public support, has flourished both at home and internationally.
It’s a shame the same wasn’t allowed to happen in the UK market.
After all, I’m pretty sure that the only domestic firms to really profit from waste PFI projects all began with three letters themselves…
I’ll let you guess who I’m talking about.