GOCO makes sense for things like the Point class ro-ros, & IMO the only bad thing about that deal is that it’s PFI not GOCO.

The really stupid element of PFIs is that the contractor has higher capital costs than the government, because HMG can always borrow at lower rates than any private business, so any operating savings first have to make up for that, before they can start saving taxpayers money. Another stupid thing is that when the contractor is investing in something with no other potential user (e.g. a road, or school), or few potential users & a hence a low resale value, it needs a contract which ties the customer in – hence schools which an LEA has declared redundant, but which they still have to pay a PFI contractor to maintain, whereas if they owned the school they could sell it (albeit at a loss, but still better than keeping a PFI deal going for an unused asset).

GOCO gets round those problems. It’s widely used for such things as water supply in some countries. Government (usually local) owns the infrastructure, & contracts private firms to manage & maintain it. Since the contractor wants its contract renewed, it has strong incentives to do a good job.

Much, much better than PFI, & for utilities, better than all-out privatisation, IMO.

PFI was adopted largely to keep capital spending off the govt books, & thus public borrowing down in the short to medium term, but it didn’t even do that. Among those bodies which decide on what counts, e.g. the IMF, there was universal agreement that most PFI capital spending counted as public spending, because it had an explicit or implicit state guarantee. And our public accounts were, after a few years, revised accordingly.