Banker heads public funding body

Sir Angus Grossart will head the Scottish Futures Trust Read Brian Taylor's blog

Merchant banker Sir Angus Grossart is to head a new company which will spearhead major public building projects such as schools and hospitals.

The Scottish Futures Trust aims to cut "excessive" profit made by private companies in PPP/PFI schemes, Finance Secretary John Swinney said.

The trust would access funds under a not-for-profit scheme.

Critics and opposition parties said the plan still lacked detail and branded it PFI under a different name.

Mr Swinney told the Scottish Parliament his plans would develop the use of local authority bond issues as a new source of public funding.

The Scottish Futures Trust is nothing more than an expensive and poorly-managed re-branding of PPP Andy Kerr Labour public services spokesman

"It is quite clear that the PFI approach used in the past has not delivered best value for the taxpayer," he said.

"Excessive profits have been made on investments that were thought to carry significant risk. In the event, these risks did not justify the profits made."

The new Scottish Futures Trust company, to be headed by former Royal Bank of Scotland vice chairman Sir Angus Grossart, would be wholly owned by Scottish ministers, but would operate at arms-length from the government to develop expertise in public project investment.

The finance secretary said infrastructure investment planned in Scotland over the next three years would total more than £14bn, adding: "This government is determined to secure the best possible deal for the taxpayers of Scotland in that investment."

But Scottish council umbrella group Cosla said the futures trust was "light on evidence and detail" and had to be more than a political aspiration.

Better deployment

Cosla vice-president Rob Murray said: "There are key elements to this proposal which require the active co-operation of local government and, to date, we have not had sufficient involvement in their development to ensure that they can work."

Labour public services spokesman Andy Kerr said: "We've established the Scottish Futures Trust is nothing more than an expensive and poorly-managed re-branding of PPP and it is clearly an attempt by this government to hoodwink the Scottish people."

Tory finance spokesman Derek Brownlee said the "jury was still out" on whether it would deliver value to the taxpayer, while the Lib Dems' Jeremy Purvis claimed some councils "didn't have a clue" what the government planned for the Scottish Futures Trust.

Sir Angus said he was aiming for a "better deployment" of public and private sector talent, adding: "If we can be more self-challenging, aspirational and open to change in this field, I believe that with goodwill, we will deliver."