Gareth Davies, the head of the National Audit Office, said using PFI comes with “risks”, including vital infrastructure like hospitals or schools being returned to the public sector in poor condition.
Mr Davies said that amid tight public finances, one of the major challenges for the new Government must be “making public money work harder”. As head of the National Audit Office , the UK’s independent public spending watchdog, I am acutely aware of the scale of the challenge. To help meet it, A second area of financial opportunity is reducing fraud and error to make more money available for government priorities. In 2022-23, HM Revenue and Customs estimated a £40 billion shortfall, or ‘tax gap’, in revenue. Meanwhile, the Department for Work and Pensions last year overpaid £9.4 billion in benefits.