News

Routemap to Excellence: £millions for frontlines with OGC's new asset management initiative

Released on 27/06/2006

Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Stephen Timms, says efficient and effective management of the public sector's £766 billion worth of assets is vital for delivering world-class public services, and the new Property Benchmarking Service from the Office of Government Commerce is an important part of this.

Addressing the "Working Assets" conference in London on Monday, June 26, 2006, Mr Timms said: "The Civil Estate represents a considerable asset. It comprises more than 300 individual property centres, covering 13 million square metres of floor space ...equivalent to 2,000 World Cup football pitches - with an annual running cost of £6 billion.

"So even quite modest improvements in the performance of the estate have the potential to deliver significant efficiency savings."

Mr Timms referred to Sir Michael Lyons's report to the Chancellor in November 2004, where Sir Michael concluded that: "By identifying those assets that are core to the government's business - and by intensifying the way we use them - we could afford to dispose of £30 billion worth of assets by 2010, so releasing resources to support critical front line activity."

Mr Timms pointed out the scale of the opportunity available - at least £760 million each year could be saved through relocating offices to cheaper areas, through full use of cross-Government property benchmarking and making better use of offices - equivalent to building 25 new schools per year.

Mr Timms added: "The civil estate is also the focus for delivering our new sustainability targets... The targets include the Government office estate achieving carbon neutrality by 2012. The new operational targets cover carbon emissions, energy efficiency, waste, and water consumption.

"They are deliberately challenging, and they are designed to deliver a step change improvement in the way the Government manages its land and buildings. We want to set an example to the rest of the public sector, and to businesses and consumers. These targets have been set, and will be implemented in conjunction with the Sustainable Development Commission."

The Chief Secretary pointed out: "Sustainability is an important consideration in all our property decisions.  By reducing the size of the estate, we can reduce significantly our costs, our consumption of resources and our impact on the environment."

OGC and Government departments are presently developing a "Routemap to Property Asset Management Excellence", to be launched in the autumn, and this "will set out our framework and direction over the next five years to achieve savings and benefits from better use of our estate," he said.

The Routemap will focus on four key improvement areas:

• leadership and integration;
• benchmarks and standards;
• professional skills; and
• reviewing progress.

Read the full speech by the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Stephen Timms. (PDF, 46k)

The draft Routemap is available for consultation shortly.

View the OGC press release. (PDF, 43k)

Contact details:
OGC Service Desk
Tel: 0845 000 4999
E-mail: ServiceDesk@ogc.gsi.gov.uk