A war has broken out over the private finance initiative (PFI) in the election campaign.
Labour last week published a list of 750 schools it said would miss out on PFI-funded redevelopment and refurbishment if the Conservatives took power.
Labour wants to keep the funding mechanism that allows the government to defer payment over several years in areas where it needs to develop projects quickly and spread risk.
The Tories and Liberal Democrats diasgree.
Both say PFI gives poor value for money and leaves taxpayers paying interest for decades.
Treasury figures published alongside last month’s …

Labour and the Conservatives have “misled” voters on efficiency savings, the Institute of Fiscal Studies has  said today.
Both parties are promising cuts to IT, human resources, and property that can not realistically be delivered, according to an IfS election briefing note, called Filling The Hole, which was published this morning.
Labour says it can make savings of £11bn a year by 2013-14, while the Tories say they can find £6bn in this financial year through making services more efficient.
The think-tank’s report argues these plans would fail to contribute to cutting the …

In the first quarter of 2010, local authorities sold 148 properties at auctions in England, Scotland and Wales, raising just £26m
This is a big decline from the same period in 2007, when 243 properties were sold for £112.9m (see graph, left).
However, experts expect councils to sell more properties after the election, as public sector bodies seek quick sell-offs.
Simon Parker, head of commercial auctions at Savills, says auctions are well suited for councils looking to sell properties worth less than £2m because “it’s open, competitive, there is lots of marketing done …

Property consultants have an anxious wait on their hands. If the Conservatives are elected on 6 May, their pledge to “cut fast and cut deep” will lead the government to procure less work from consultants. Similarly, last Monday, Labour pledged to “sharply” reduce spending on consultants.
However, the skills shortage in the public sector may limit how far the government can cut property consultants. Public sector bosses say they need private expertise to help them make the property savings promised under the government’s operational efficiency programme. In 2008/9, central government departments …

Disposals of government land and property plummeted between April 2007 and April 2009, according to official figures released today.
HM Treasury’s public spending statistics show that receipts from selling central government land and buildings fell from £2.1bn in the 2007-08 financial year to £650m in the following year.
Across the public sector total incomings from asset sales have more than halved compared with the last four years running, sinking from around a £7bn average to £3bn in the last financial year.
The figures were published alongside financial data that revealed annual borrowing to …

Half a million public sector jobs are set to be cut by 2015, the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development has said.
Today, the CIPD published its Election 2010 briefing on the economy and jobs, which says a 10% reduction of the 5.8 million-strong public sector workforce by 2015 was a “reasonable expectation.” Cuts will fall predominantly in back-office functions such as HR, IT, and property according to the CIPD.
It says no political party had fully addressed the need to cut public spending, and that more realistic numbers of job losses …

Public sector workers could take home bonuses for making savings such as property efficiencies, under new plans unveiled by the Conservatives.
On Saturday, the Tories published their Invitation to Public Sector Workers, a manifesto that promises to give 5 million people working in the public sector more power over the services they deliver.
The Conservatives say they want public officers to be able to bid to create co-operative enterprises, which would they could run independently and with more freedom.
They say co-operatives that find efficiencies would be able to pay themselves bonuses out …

Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg last night accused Labour and the Conservatives of attempting to save on “paperclips and potplants in Whitehall” with their plans to cut the public deficit.
Speaking on ITV1 in the UK’s first ever leaders’ debate ahead of the General Election on 6 May, Clegg said his party’s £15bn a year plan to cut the £167bn deficit was the only viable savings pledge in any of the parties’ manifestos.
He said the £6bn cuts proposed by the Conservatives, which could include vacating 10% of central government office space …

I’m a council property manager. What can I learn about Total Place to help me save money?
Peter Parkes, head of property services at Worcestershire County Council, which undertook one of the pilot projects as part of the Total Place initiative responds:
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Our first task in the Total Place pilot scheme task was to create a database and map of the entire public estate in the county.
We created a Geographic Information System map (see bottom of page) of the entire estate, encompassing all local agencies, with the help of the Office of Government Commerce, …

Business leaders have said today that the UK must invest in £500bn of infrastructure by 2020 in order to stay competitive.
In a report published today, the Institute of Directors says that the £434bn infrastructure target set by think-tank Policy Exchange falls short of the investment needed.
It says the IoD has used the same calculations but found that £66bn more is needed for energy, transport, water and technological infrastructure.
One of its proposals for raising this finance is to ring-fence future proceeds from bank privatisation and use them solely for infrastructure investment, …