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Earlier this year, Whitehall managers were bluntly advised to either reduce the size of their property holdings or axe staff. A plucky regional HM Revenue and Customs office which slashed property occupation by 88% to retain its regional presence became a shining, Stakhanovite example of what could be achieved. Under stark threat of far worse to come later, co-locations between local authorities and central government agencies are now increasingly frequent. Public bodies would plead their case before Cabinet Office minister, Francis Maude, and his officials, offering elaborate trade-offs in return for permission to remain London based. In short, this ‘act now or the bunny gets it' ploy worked a treat. However, it seems likely that departments will be left holding charred bunny fur after 20 October. The anticipated cuts will lead to a cull in Whitehall staff numbers of around 30%, accelerating the flight from larger HQ buildings. The Department for Culture, Media and Sport is advanced in plans to abandon ship from its premises off Trafalgar Square. HM Treasury is itself touting for custom, offering its neighbours space for 400 staff to make full use of post-Spending Review capacity at Number 1 Horse Guards. Allowing a few weeks for the smoke to clear, greater detail on the radical shift in government workspace will be made apparent. According to the latest update to the Government's Structural Reform Plans, the Government Property Unit (GPU) has already produced an asset-management strategy for the central civil and operational estate. Meanwhile, the commercial property world is driving itself into a frenzy of speculation as to future announcements, its appetite inflamed by the prospect of choice slices of a government estate worth almost £400bn. More prosaically, plans, however radical, will build on existing Operational Efficiency Programme targets for achieving £20bn from asset sales and eventual running cost savings of £5bn a year from the total government estate, with the civil estate contributing £1bn. Government estates' directors may well be unhappy with the central direction, regarding it as an unwelcome return to the former, unlamented Property Services Agency. But in the days of ‘We're all in it together' they'll have to learn, in modern parlance, to ‘Suck it up'. Jonathan Werran is editor of Governetz Public Property

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WHITEHALL

Inside View

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