This paper reviews the promotion of the Private Finance Initiative (PFI) in the social housing sector in England to illustrate that public policy transfer to new sectors of the public services may be problematic. The first ‘PFI pathfinder’ schemes in housing were initiated in 1999, but most of these schemes were still under procurement in 2004. Interviews with local authority PFI project managers are used to identify some of the causes of delay in the completion of these schemes and PFI literature from other sectors is used to examine the transferability issues. The transferability of public policy is shown to be influenced by sector-specific factors and also by the structural features of PFI procurement.