Title

With some 1,300 public buildings worth over £3bn Worcestershire CC decided there must be scope for a more efficient use of the assets says Roger Britton. Right across the UK there are public buildings each with a notice saying who that particular property belongs to. "Financial efficiencies are essential but we need to remember the other two parts of the triangle – service improvement and community benefit." In Worcestershire we have in excess of 1,300 valued at over £3bn and although we think we have a good track record of collaboration Total Place made us stop and ask the question - as all these properties are designed to serve the community why don't we treat them as a single resource so we can use and run them more efficiently and to better effect? We already had some good experiences. In Bromsgrove we have a £67m regeneration programme including multi-agency public service buildings and improved infrastructure including a new railway station. In Worcester City we are building a new library and history centre which, for the first time in the UK incorporates a university and public library giving great economies as well as improving services. Using Total Place to step up a gear our starting point was to map those 1,300 properties. We did this by bringing the key players together, including local government, local agencies and the whole civil estate through OGC, to build a GIS solution. The database contains key property data, though we have avoided the temptation to make it so comprehensive that it is difficult to maintain. But perhaps the most important piece of intelligence is a RAG indicator for each property. This provides a headline for discussion about collaboration. Red indicates properties such as crematoria where this is unlikely, amber a possibility and green an opportunity. To drive this forward we have drawn up a protocol which clarifies our joint vision. The significance of this is that it gives an impetus to operational staff who are critical to success. They need explicit endorsement to work in novel and innovative ways. The culmination of our vision is a single ‘property trust' allowing efficient and effective management of all owned or leased property and facilitating the development of approaches such as a single local capital pot which is currently being explored with Treasury. We believe that in excess of £0.8bn of capital receipts could be achieved, although we are cautious as, market volatility, transitional costs and long lead times make such savings problematic. Our work on changing working practices and establishing innovative and highly disciplined facilities management suggests that these areas offer more dependable and immediate efficiencies. Illustrative of this was the replacement of under-desk waste bins with recycling centres saving £100,000 pa on the cleaning contract at one site. Financial efficiencies are essential but we need to remember the other two parts of the triangle – service improvement and community benefit. We know that all three can be delivered such as in our hub in Evesham where citizens can see the police, county, districts, Jobcentre Plus and a host of other organisations at a single location. We have to use property to provoke questions about service delivery. Although we are pleased with progress so far there is still a lot to do. We have to maintain our momentum and keep all the partners, including central government, around the table, particularly when budget issues may lure them back into silos. Perhaps the greatest challenges are around accountability, legal issues and funding regimes. We know that we can deliver through local collaboration and decision making and we must continue to work with colleagues from Treasury and other Whitehall departments to ensure that there is strong and visible leadership and a will to remove technical and structural barriers. These are serious and complex issues and must be resolved if we are to achieve the full aspirations of Total Place. Roger Britton is Total Place programme manager at Worcestershire CC

Title

WHITEHALL

A Total Place solution for public property

SUBSCRIBE TO CONTINUE READING