PFI hospital advisers cost £27m

More than £27million of taxpayers' money has been spent on hiring lawyers and financial advisers to push through controversial schemes to build hospitals using privately-raised money, ministers have revealed.

The substantial figure is the cost of bringing in outside consultants for the first 15 Private Finance Initiative (PFI) schemes in the NHS since Labour came to power in 1997. It will trigger fresh alarm over the true costs of the strategy to provide public buildings using cash raised by private consortia.

John Edmonds, of the GMB union, today described the figure as a scandalous use of NHS resources. "Spending so much on private consultants to advise on how to employ private sector companies beggars belief," he said. "This is money that could have gone on more doctors, more nurses and more treatment."

Tony Blair is determined to reshape the public services such as schools and hospitals using private expertise and cash, but faces opposition from the unions and some of his own backbenchers because of concerns about the spiralling costs, and the conditions for staff. The figure of £27million, which does not include the cost of NHS staff 's time spent on preparing the schemes, was released recently in a memorandum the Department of Health prepared for the Health Select Committee.

Health Secretary Alan Milburn argues that as more schemes are carried out, the costs of legal and financial advisers are coming down, and he compared the sum of £27million with the £80million spent by the Tories preparing PFI contracts which were never signed.

David Hinchcliffe, chair of the select committee, said the amount was "obviously an issue we would want to look at in some detail".