MPs urge closer working to increase office savings
Author: Jonathan Werran, The MJ |
Local authorities should work with central government departments to make greater savings on office property, an influential Commons committee has reported.
According to a study by the Public Accounts Committee (PAC), published on 31 August, work undertaken by the DCLG’s capital asset pathfinders programme suggests there is potential to go much further in reducing office costs.
But the Cabinet Office, which is responsible for overseeing efficiencies in the civil estate through the Government Property Unit (GPU), informed MPs that a lack of incentives for central and local government to share space was stymieing the scope to make clear savings.
Chair of the PAC, Margaret Hodge, said the GPU needed greater clout to force action across Whitehall, and should show greater leadership in developing a collaborative approach.
‘Many public sector buildings belong to local government, so the GPU should maximise opportunities for local public sector bodies, such as local authorities and the NHS, to share space with central government,’ said Ms Hodge. She also attacked as ‘wasteful’ the Government’s policy of consolidating its office estate, saying it would lead to the mothballing of unused buildings, and risked urban blight. The PAC chair also lambasted the Government for being ‘lamentably slow’ in meeting its commitment to make more properties available to small businesses, and urged it to ‘get on with selling buildings, rather than holding on in the hope of a future rise in property prices’.
In response, a Cabinet Office spokeswoman said more than 250 freeehold properties had been sold by the Government, generating 640m in sales, while running costs fell by 200m in 2011/12. ‘But we want to go further to find savings and to make more innovative, strategic use of public property,’ the spokeswoman said.
‘We are working with Bristol City Council and Preston City Council on pilot property projects across the wider public sector. We have also identified empty office spaces which will be offered to small and medium enterprises and are exploring how others could be used for free schools.’
But James Grierson, head of public sector at property consultancy, DTZ, derided the use of surplus government office space for business start-ups as a piece of political grandstanding ‘purporting to tackle a non-problem’. Mr Grierson said local authorities should take responsibility for consolidating their properties and exploit the city-region dimension of the public estate.