The private finance initiative (PFI) and finance capital: A note on gaps in the "accountability" debate

During recent years, a wide spectrum of research has questioned whether public services/infrastructure procurement through private finance, as exemplified by the UK Private Finance Initiative (PFI), meets minimum standard of democratic accountability. While broadly agreeing with some of these arguments, this paper suggests that this debate is flawed on two grounds. Firstly, PFI is not about effective procurement, or even about a pragmatic choice of procurement mechanisms which can potentially compromise public involvement and input; rather it is about a process where the state creates new profit opportunities at a time when the international financial system is increasingly lacking in safe investment opportunities. Secondly, because of its primary function as investment opportunity, PFI, by its very nature, prioritises the risk-return criteria of private finance over the needs of the public sector client and its stakeholders. Using two case studies of recent PFI projects, the paper illustrates some of the mechanisms through which finance capital exercises control over the PFI procurement process. The paper concludes that recent proposals aimed at “reforming” or “democratising” PFI fail to recognise the objective constraints which this type of state-finance capital nexus imposes on political process

The limits of market-based governance and accountability - PFI refinancing and the resurgence of the regulatory state

The refinancing of PFI (Private Finance Initiative) projects currently represents one of the most contentious aspects of Public Private Partnership in the UK. The negative publicity associated with UK PFI refinancing deals is associated with two main factors, namely evidence of massive private sector profit making in connection with past refinancing deals, and the ‘failure’ of private sector financiers to share refinancing profits with public sector organisations in line with government recommendations. This paper examines the ongoing ‘dance of non-regulation’ associated with PFI refinancing on the basis of traditional Marxist notions of ‘contradictions of capitalism’. Our analysis commences with the argument that PFI represents a prototypical case of an alliance between finance capital and the state, which has been created with the principal purpose of establishing a new source of profits for the private sector. A Marxist analysis of state-business relationships would predict such an alliance to show tendencies towards instability which could arise from a number of factors. These include, among others, the inherent lack of legitimacy of such an alliance vis a vis established policy goals and the stakeholders associated with them; a lack of a credible regulatory framework which, as a systemic prerequisite of private sector profit making, further exacerbates existing problems of legitimation; and, perhaps most importantly, the potentially self-defeating attempt by capital to maximise gains from the exploitation of the existing alliance without concern for the possibility of a political or regulatory backlash. Examining the recent history of PFI refinancing we find evidence of most of these destabilising tendencies which we expect to trigger calls for a greater regulation of PFI projects in the future

BSE crisis and food safety regulation: a comparison of the UK and Germany

The BSE crisis represents one of the worst policy disasters experienced by a UK government in recent years. In material terms, it led to the slaughter of 3.3 million cattle and an estimated economic loss of £3.7 billion. In administrative terms, the crisis led to the dissolution of the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (MAFF), an institution that was heavily criticised by the Phillips Inquiry for its lack of openness and transparency. Although far less severe in terms of its economic impact, with estimated losses of between Euro 0.8 and 1.05 billion, the German BSE crisis resulted in extensive political fallout, leading, inter alia, to the resignation of two government ministers. This paper compares the handling of the crisis in the UK and Germany and the regulation put in place in its aftermath. It explores the reasons for the failure of both governments to manage this crisis in a credible, timely and proactive fashion. Examining the institutional contexts in which decisions about scientific evidence on BSE were made, the paper argues that, in both countries, a centralised system, in which government agencies controlled “science for government”, was vulnerable to expert-interest group alliances which undermined the potential for a credible assessment of public health and safety risks. Looking at the policies adopted in the aftermath of these crises, the paper notes that, although being far less affected by BSE, Germany paradoxically adopted far more rigorous measures for the prevention of future incidents, which included the strict administrative separation of the risk assessment and management functions. Our paper concludes that the extent of administrative reforms which are initiated in response to crises is more likely to correspond to that general receptiveness of the political environment to these reforms, than the ‘objective’ impact of the crisis itself

The limits of market-based governance and accountability - PFI refinancing and the resurgence of the regulatory state

The refinancing of PFI (Private Finance Initiative) projects currently represents one of the most contentious aspects of Public Private Partnership in the UK. The negative publicity associated with UK PFI refinancing deals is associated with two main factors, namely evidence of massive private sector profit making in connection with past refinancing deals, and the ‘failure’ of private sector financiers to share refinancing profits with public sector organisations in line with government recommendations. This paper examines the ongoing ‘dance of non-regulation’ associated with PFI refinancing on the basis of traditional Marxist notions of ‘contradictions of capitalism’. Our analysis commences with the argument that PFI represents a prototypical case of an alliance between finance capital and the state, which has been created with the principal purpose of establishing a new source of profits for the private sector. A Marxist analysis of state-business relationships would predict such an alliance to show tendencies towards instability which could arise from a number of factors. These include, among others, the inherent lack of legitimacy of such an alliance vis a vis established policy goals and the stakeholders associated with them; a lack of a credible regulatory framework which, as a systemic prerequisite of private sector profit making, further exacerbates existing problems of legitimation; and, perhaps most importantly, the potentially self-defeating attempt by capital to maximise gains from the exploitation of the existing alliance without concern for the possibility of a political or regulatory backlash. Examining the recent history of PFI refinancing we find evidence of most of these destabilising tendencies which we expect to trigger calls for a greater regulation of PFI projects in the future

Incorporation of nitrogen into TiO2 thin films during PVD processes

In this paper we investigate the possibility of incorporating nitrogen into amorphous, photocatalytic TiO2 thin films, prepared at room temperature, during the growth process. The aim is to reduce the bandgap of the UV active thin films. Physical vapor deposition experiments employing a titanium vacuum arc with gas backfill ranging from pure oxygen to pure nitrogen, are carried out. The resulting films are characterized for chemical composition, phase composition, optical properties and hydrophilicity in order to determine a correlation between gas composition and thin film properties. The experimental results point that a visible change in the band structure of the deposited layers is achieved

Electron mobility in surface- and buried- channel flatband In_0.53Ga_0.47As MOSFETs with ALD Al₂O₃ gate dielectric.

In this paper, we investigate the scaling potential of flatband III-V MOSFETs by comparing the mobility of surface and buried In<sub>0.53</sub>Ga<sub>0.47</sub>As channel devices employing an Atomic Layer Deposited (ALD) Al<sub>2</sub>O<sub>3</sub> gate dielectric and a delta-doped InGaAs/InAlAs/InP heterostructure. Peak electron mobilities of 4300 cm<sup>2</sup>/V·s and 6600 cm<sup>2</sup>/V·s at a carrier density of 3×1012 cm<sup>-2</sup> for the surface and buried channel structures respectively were determined. In contrast to similarly scaled inversion-channel devices, we find that mobility in surface channel flatband structures does not drop rapidly with electron density, but rather high mobility is maintained up to carrier concentrations around 4x10<sup>12</sup> cm<sup>-2</sup> before slowly dropping to around 2000 cm<sup>2</sup>/V·s at 1x10M<sup>13</sup> cm<sup>-2</sup>. We believe these to be world leading metrics for this material system and an important development in informing the III-V MOSFET device architecture selection process for future low power, highly scaled CM

Experimental study of the effect of local atomic ordering on the energy band gap of melt grown InGaAsN alloys

We present a study of melt grown dilute nitride InGaAsN layers by x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), Raman and photoluminescence (PL) spectroscopy. The purpose of the study is to determine the degree of atomic ordering in the quaternary alloy during the epitaxial growth at near thermodynamic equilibrium conditions and its influence on band gap formation. Despite the low In concentration (~3%) the XPS data show a strong preference toward In–N bonding configuration in the InGaAsN samples. Raman spectra reveal that most of the N atoms are bonded to In instead of Ga atoms and the formation of N-centred In3Ga1 clusters. PL measurements reveal smaller optical band gap bowing as compared to the theoretical predictions for random alloy and localised tail states near the conduction band minimum

Why do European primary care physicians sometimes not think of, or act on, a possible cancer diagnosis? : A qualitative study

Funding The Swedish application for ethical approval was funded by the Jämtland Cancer and Nursing Foundation. The study had no other external fundingPeer reviewedPostprin