Trellum · Practice · PFI & long-term FM contracts
Read the contract the way it is actually operated.
PFI is a 25-year contract in which specialist contract knowledge naturally concentrates with the operator. Authority teams turn over; operator commercial leads do not. Trellum sits with the authority team, reading the payment mechanism from first principles against recorded service events, so the authority sits in quarterly reviews with the same depth of understanding as the people across the table.
The condition
PM schedules run anywhere from 50–500 pages of defined terms, availability logic, and deduction calculations. Most estates teams inherited them.
- 653 live UK PFI contracts — IPA, 2024
- 2028–2037 handback window for live UK PFI contracts
- £136bn unitary charge remaining — IPA, 2024
- 25 years typical PFI contract length
The Payment Mechanism Audit
The audit reads the schedule's availability and deduction logic against the recorded service events the authority holds — helpdesk logs, BMS availability data, PPM records — and returns a register of where contractual deduction entitlement and reported position diverge. Fixed-fee, four-week sprint with a single named deliverable: a written audit and a working register, lodged in a format the authority team can extend as operational data builds up.
How the engagement runs
- W01 Brief. One-page scope. Contract number, key schedules, named accountable officer, target deliverable date.
- W02 Read. PM schedule read. Helpdesk / BMS data request. Interviews: contract manager, compliance lead, finance.
- W03 Map. Deduction triggers mapped against 6–12 months of service events. Register drafted.
- W04 Hand-off. Written audit. Workshop with client team. Register lodged in client system — maintained without further Trellum involvement.
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