Councils should refuse contractors who ask for extra fees to make changes to their private-finance initiative deals, a watchdog has urged. Chairman of the Committee of Public Accounts, Edward Leigh, urged the public sector to deny contractors ‘unjustified' additional fees for changing the terms of the deal, suggesting that alterations of more than £100,000 be subject to competition, and that the Government should provide guidance on what prices were reasonable for common, minor changes to projects. He said public sector authorities were ‘not doing a good job' of managing their PFI deals, a failure which, in 2006, cost the taxpayer £180m. Mr Leigh blamed a lack of commercial expertise and insufficient management of the contracts. He went on the cite the findings of a National Audit Office survey which revealed that more than 15% of PFI projects examined by the researchers were not being managed on a full-time basis. There are now more than 500 operational PFIs with a combined capital value of £57bn and future payments amount to £181bn.