2001-02-02 Prescott and Kiley agree to work together on the London Underground Public Private Partnership (Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions)

2000-03-30 Pressing ahead with the PPP - Public Sector Comparator details published (Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions)

_______________________________________________________________

date 28 February 2002
source Mayor of London
type Letter

Rt Hon Stephen Byers MP
Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions
DTLR
Eland House
Bressenden Place
London SW1E 5DU

28 February 2002

Dear Stephen,

It is with very great regret that I have to tell you that I have instructed my lawyers to write to London Regional Transport in connection with PPP. I enclose a copy of their letter, which was sent earlier today.

Despite numerous requests and a very strongly worded letter to Sir Malcolm Bates sent last Friday (which has been ignored), Bob Kiley has not been provided with key material relating to the central PPP issues of risk transfer and value for money. We are forced to conclude that either the material is, for some reason, being deliberately concealed from us or, worse, that it does not exist and the PPP contracts remain under negotiation with the bidders.

If the material is being withheld from Bob and his team, I have to ask what it is that LT is concerned about us knowing about these crucial issues. If the material has not yet been agreed with the bidders the far more serious question arises of how LT could recommend that you proceed with PPP when they did not know what would be in the contracts. Certainly, Ernst & Young, whose report on value for money you relied on when deciding in principle to proceed with PPP admitted to the select committee that negotiations between LUL and the bidders were ongoing when they finished their report. How can you rely on a report on value for money that could not have taken account of the final agreed position on risk transfer which you yourself described as being “at the very heart of whether or not value for money is going to be achieved”?

In its advert today London Underground asks the travelling public to “add up the pounds”. How can the public be expected to add up the pounds when the key issues on value for money are being concealed or ignored?

Yours sincerely,


Ken Livingstone
Mayor of London

Railhub Archive ::: 2002-02-28 MAY-001