The first public meeting to challenge the Private Finance Initiative, PFI, redevelopment of Haverstock School in the London borough of Camden met in Hampstead Town Hall, 11/07/01. Parents, Teachers, Governors and Union members met to discuss their concerns about the potential impact of the private sector in their school and the creeping privatisation of the public sector.

Introduction of PFI is a long Byzantine process. The documentation is deep and difficult to make sense of. In effect it paralyses any much-needed redevelopment of schools as the consultation process takes at minimum 18 months, and in the case of Pimlico School in the Westminster borough of London, 5 years. That Pimlico rejected PFI doesn’t appear to have caused much reflection in New Labour who are pushing ahead with PFI as a solution for providing investment to the chronically underfunded British Public Sector.

What worried many of those at this meeting amongst other issues of PFI, was the length of the minimum 25-year contract. Its not clear what would happen if a school decided to reassess its arrangements with Private Contractors. Entering into the world of commercial Law for a school would be uncharted territory.

The Education in Britain budget for 1997-98 was £39 billion. For businesses in Britain this is a large piece of cake they would like to get a bite off. But it’s not just them. Waiting in the wings are the WTO who want to do away with trade and investment barriers and let global business indulge in a feeding frenzy. The likelihood that contracts made locally will soon, through mergers and take-overs, be then globalised and that the new owners may know nothing about the needs of education is not lost on anyone. It will inevitably create conflicts of interest. Everyone’s favourite fast food outlet Macdonalds has hosted ‘free conferences/ for heads and deputies across London and given away vouchers for free Burgers at Eltham Green school in Greenwich, to ‘improve attendance’.

At present Private Sector developers are making multi-million windfalls out of PFI contracts to build facilities and run public services for the Government. A bare-faced scam is to renegotiate loans taken out to build and operate prisons or schools – getting cheaper terms and keeping the difference. Recently developers behind the £230m Norfolk and Norwich Hospital were looking to gain £70m from refinancing.

The meeting ended with a Statement of Intent ‘to oppose privatisation of education and other public services’ through lobbying and petitioning. Unfortunately Tony Blair’s New Labour’ don’t want to listen. How to make them is another story. But from the mood in the Hampstead Town Hall and the growing disquiet amongst the unions and more recently Labour backbenchers it seems that this anger and the anti-capitalist project just may be able to join the dots to see if the letters "Popular Front" appear. But leaving suspicions and ideology behind might prove too difficult to overcome. Nevertheless the commitment and support for the Public Services from those in attendance at the meeting was strong and inspiring.
Lets hope the momentum becomes irresistible.

For more info:
Socialist Teachers Alliance, have a great pamphlet’ The case against the privatisation of education’ Contact  alex@elta.demon.co.uk

‘PFI’s bounty hunters’. Article in the Observer 8th July 01 by Oliver Morgan and Nick Mathiason.