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Main Building project: MoD's resounding success - OGC case study on change programme
Released on 05/04/2006
MoD Main Building redevelopment: working better together
The Ministry of Defence headquarters on Whitehall is a Grade I listed building, designed in 1915 and built between 1939 and 1959, with interruptions from two world wars.
Over the years, it suffered cumulative decline, with severe Health and Safety shortcomings, never having had a major refurbishment. It also became expensive to maintain in central London and, while reviewing its estate in the mid 1990s, the MoD decided the building environment was no longer consistent with a modern business HQ.
Ministerial approval was given in 1996 to take forward the MoD's Main Building Redevelopment (MBR) project as a pathfinder private finance initiative (PFI) programme, and in May 2000, the MoD signed a PFI contract, granting a consortium, Modus Services plc, a 30-year lease to redevelop and service the HQ.
Resounding success
This case study outlines the MoD's resounding success - using OGC guidance, including the benefits management programme, to complete the MoD project on budget and ahead of schedule, while delivering a better building, better equipped, with better processes and working practices to provide more efficient direction to Britain's defence operations across the world.
The redeveloped workspace has increased the capacity of the building by some 700 desks, and has allowed for the disposal of five other London sites.
Significantly, the new more open plan environment is better able to support interaction, communication and collaboration in a more team-based, less hierarchical workspace: transforming the way MoD works.
The case study also focuses on the huge change management programme that followed the three-year decant period, after which the MoD moved 3,150 staff back into the redeveloped Main Building.
Renewing pride
In one of the busiest periods for defence in modern history, the MoD managed to provide a new HQ, renewing pride in the undeniably and recognisably better workplace. About three-quarters of the staff rated this as a very high standard of fit-for-purpose accommodation and some even described it as the best MoD accommodation they have ever had.
Some valuable lessons have been learnt that will immensesly benefit future projects of such a massive scale, and details of the MoD Main Building redevelopment project make pretty exciting reading, not only for professionals and MoD personnel, but also for the average lay-person.
More OGC case studies on Better Asset Management >>
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Page last updated: 2008-10-20
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