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PFI and PPP/Privatisation Recommendations
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Help

Welcome to PFI/PPP and Privatisation Recommendations

This help page provides a quick overview of the features of the PFI/PPP and Privatisation Recommendations database, including tips on how to make the best use of the system. 

For further information on PFI/PPP and Privatisation recommendations please e-mail the PFI Group.

Help tips:

List of Reports

Search Search Results Page PFI Terms

List of Reports

The List Reports page includes all Private Finance Initiative (PFI) and Public Private Partnership (PPP) recommendations taken from the National Audit Office (NAO) reports, Committee of Public Accounts (PAC) reports and Treasury Minutes (TM).  They are arranged by House of Commons Session of publication (reverse chronological order), with each session ordered by the House of Commons (HOC) publication number (reverse order).  From this page you can link to either a listing of the recommendations of the reports, or the full text of the report.  If you wish to look at the recommendations by keyword then please try the Search option.

What options are there for listing reports?

  1. The default setting for the List of Reports page is a complete list of all the reports from which the recommendations are sourced.
  2. If you are only interested in the NAO's PFI reports, for example, you can reduce the number of displayed reports by using the Image of the filter button button at the top of the page.
  3. Select the appropriate items from the drop down boxes to the left of the filter button.  For example, selecting NAO and PFI from the two boxes will result in a displayed list that includes only the NAO’s reports on PFI related matters.

    Image illustrating drop down selection boxes
     
  4. After making your selection, you click on the filter button. This action refreshes the list to show only those reports meeting your filter criteria.

How do I view specific recommendations from the List of Reports?

  1. From the List of Reports page you can view all the recommendations drawn from any of the listed reports by clicking on the report's title.
  2. Clicking on the second title, in the example below, "PFI: Construction Performance" would take you to the recommendations.
  3. If you click on the "View" link beside the title you will be taken to the full text of the report, if it is available on-line.

    Image illustrating the List of Reports view of the database

How can I get access to electronic versions of the full reports?

There are two ways to access the full text of the report you are interested in:

  1. From the List of Reports page you can click on the "View" link beside the title and you will be taken to the full text of the report, if it is available on-line.
  2. Alternatively if you go into the list of recommendations for a particular report you can click on the title of the report.  In the example shown below clicking on "PFI Construction Performance" will take you to the full text of the report.
Image illustrating the recommendations view when you click on the title of a report

click image to go to the top of the page

Search

The default settings on the page are fixed so that, on your opening of the page and not changing the settings, any searches will cover all recommendations included in the site.

From the Search page you can restrict your results to: 1) NAO or PAC & TM recommendations, 2) either PFI or PPP recommendations and 3) free text. You can combine any of these three elements or use them individually.

What options are there for refining my search?

  1. On the search page the first row of options allows you select the organisation. For example, your can limit results to only NAO recommendations by selecting the option button marked “NAO Reports”.

    Image illustrating radio buttons for selecting NAO or PAC/TM reports
     
  2. The second row of options allows you to restrict your search to either PFI, PPP or both sets of recommendations. This option is also linked to the Keyword lists, these change as you select PFI or PPP settings. The list changes as although most keywords cover both fields, some are specific to one or the other. You can view the division of keywords on the page Thesaurus of Keywords. To select keywords click on each and press the "add" button.  You can select as many keywords as you like.

    Image illustrating the radio button selection of PFI or PPP recommendations and their associated keywords

  3. The free text field can be used on its own or in combination with the first two options.  There are three boxes to enable simple boolean searching.

    Image illustrating the text search fields

How do the Keywords work?

  1. Positioned below the options button you will find the Keyword Search facility, as shown below.  The Keyword lists change as you select PFI or PPP settings, most keywords cover both fields although some are specific to one or the other.

    Image illustrating all the options available on the search screen
  1. Keywords are used to describe PFI and PPP subjects that appear in the recommendations. The definition of each keyword is broader than its common use because we have tried to strike a balance between the number of keywords through which you have to trawl (making this function user friendly) and the relevance of the recommendations that result from your search (useful output). If you are uncertain about which keyword best fits your query, you can use either the Thesaurus of Keywords that describes the coverage of each keyword, or the PFI Terms list that identifies, against each non keyword term, the keyword(s) that should be relevant for your search.
  2. Each recommendation has assigned to it one or more relevant keywords. You should note that the assigned keywords may not necessarily appear in the text of the recommendation.
  3. Using the keyword function to find recommendations relevant to your query, you highlight one or more relevant keywords in the list box on the left and click the button marked “add”. This action transfers the highlighted keywords into the list box on the right, which constitutes the keyword search list. You can add further keywords to your list by repeating the process. If you want to remove a keyword from your keyword search list box, simply highlight the keyword in the search list and click the button marked “remove”.
  4. Having created your keyword search list you can click on the blue “search” button at the bottom of the page to run your search.

How can I run a free text search?

  1. Below the Keyword Search facility is a text search facility that allows you to search for a particular piece of text. You may enter one or more words in each text box. Note, however, that the search will look for exact matches only. For example, if you enter 'should-cost' the output will not include recommendations where this term does not include the hyphen.
  2. You may enter up to three text words or phrases. Using OR between the words will return recommendations that match with either one or both of the text phrases. Using AND between the text words or phrases will return recommendations that contain both text words.
  3. You do not have to enter any keywords or text words/phrases, you may leave both blank.
  4. Once you have entered in your search criteria click the search button to see your search results.
  5. The search will run on the text of the recommendations only, this will not include the title of the report. So, for example, a search for the Libra Project report with the free text "Libra" will not return any results.

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Search Results Pagea name="search_results_page">

The search results page lists all of the NAO recommendations, PAC recommendations and treasury minutes that have matched your search criteria. 

A breakdown of your search appears at the top of the page.  So, in the example below, the output recommendations have been drawn from NAO reports and PAC reports (with linked Treasury Minutes where appropriate) covering both the PFI and PPP fields. The search criteria comprised the keyword ‘Advisers’ and two text words, ‘PFI procurements’ and ‘stakeholders’. The text words were linked by ‘OR’. Given the report type and field settings, the output included all recommendations against which the keyword ‘Advisers’ has been assigned and all recommendations containing the text ‘PFI procurements’ and/or ‘stakeholders’ (the text searches are not case specific).

Image illustrating the different elements that make up the search results screen

Below the search criteria the page informs you about the number of matching recommendations that were found, in the example it is 83.

Following this is the 'redefine' button. This button allows you to go back to the search page with your current search criteria still entered. You can then modify your criteria and search again.

The paging buttons and links allow you to move between the different pages of search results. Each page contains ten recommendations.

For each recommendation matching one or more of your keywords, the relevant keyword(s) is identified above the recommendation to which it applies. Where you have used the text search facility, the matching words in the recommendations are highlighted with a blue background.

The recommendations are grouped by report, with the groups in reverse chronological order. For each report group there is a link built into the report title that allows you to view the list of all recommendations in the database relevant to the particular report. From the page of report specific recommendations you have the option to click the report title again, taking you to an electronic version of the full report.

Special Note About PAC/TM Results

You may observe that the same Treasury Minute response appears against two or more PAC recommendations. This is not an input error, but rather results from the common practice of drafting a single Treasury Minute response to cover a group of PAC recommendations.

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Usage and Copyright

Anyone using the output of the search facility provided with respect to the database of recommendations does so at their own risk.  In particular, the National Audit Office does not warrant the completeness of any search, nor that it will reveal all recommendations or reports relevant to the user's search criteria.

Copyright for Treasury Minute and Committee of Public Accounts Recommendations

Crown copyright material is reproduced with the permission of the Controller of HMSO and the Queen's Printer for Scotland.

Parliamentary copyright material is reproduced with the permission of the Controller of Her Majesty’s Stationery Office on behalf of Parliament.