At Trentham Academy, a large secondary school in Stoke-on-Trent, the swimming pool is barricaded with danger signs, while the heating system has remained broken during recent mock exams.
“It was hard to concentrate,” student Esme says. “I couldn’t stop myself from shivering while I was trying to breathe and to calm myself down while I was trying to do the exam.”
This is one of 88 schools in the area that were maintained as part of a Private Finance Initiative (PFI) contract, signed by the city council 25 years ago.
PFI companies like Innisfree usually hire sharper lawyers and accountants than councils, so these projects tend to become scandals where government is fleeced. Here, Innisfree is accused of taking dividends early then letting the PFI company collapse at the end of its term with work not finished and the council having no tools to make the PFI company’s owner save it.
The bigger scandal is some politicians who ignore or deny this danger and still want more PFI and PPP with minimal safeguards.