The Private Finance Initiative and the changing governance of the built environment

The Private Finance Initiative (PFI), introduced by the British government in 1992, marks a potentially significant change in the form and nature of the production, consumption and management of the built environment and of the services delivered through that built environment. This paper provides an outline of the constitution and development of the PFI, but does so in terms of a conceptual framework that situates the national state form and its policy-making process within the changing nature of the global accumulation of capital. It argues that the PFI is a mode of governance through which the state is attempting to restructure itself and, indirectly, class relations, by transforming the social relations of service and infrastructure provision and subordinating them to the discipline of the market.