February 3, 2015

Government publishes details of UK’s digital infrastructure for first time

by Mark Eltringham • Flexible working, News, Public Sector, Technology

The UK government has today published new information about over 13,000 miles of publicly owned digital infrastructure and outlined steps to ensure that these networks are used to improve connectivity for users and businesses across the country. Each year the government claims to spend around £1.5 billion of taxpayers’ money on public sector networks, including signal masts, fibre optics, and cables but had no comprehensive database of the details of the current infrastructure. The Government now hopes that the publication of the details of the nation’s public digital infrastructure will allow its spare capacity to be used effectively, to minimise the chance that a lack of knowledge will lead to unnecessary duplication and to allow more parts of the UK to enjoy better digital coverage and enhance the benefits of flexible working.

February 3, 2015

Development of urban infrastructure held back by city leaders

by Mark Eltringham • Cities, News, Property, Public Sector

The main obstacles to the implementation of urban infrastructure are those raised by the organisations and people who do most to champion them. That is the standout finding of a new report, Urban Infrastructure Insights 2015, published by the Economic Intelligence Unit and FCC Group. The survey of more than 400 business leaders and policy makers worldwide found that a majority believe the greatest impediment to the development of urban infrastructure is a lack of will and skill amongst civic leaders and officials. Lack of political will was cited by 40 percent of respondents, alongside a lack of skills among officials (39 percent), and poor governmental effectiveness (34 percent). Lack of funds was cited by 34 percent. Policy makers were especially scathing about city leaders with more than half citing their lack of skills and knowledge.

January 22, 2015

MPs call on BBC to cut ‘staggering’ running costs of its estate

by Mark Eltringham • Facilities management, News, Public Sector

The body which oversees UK public spending has criticised the way the BBC is running its estate following the publication of a National Audit Office (NAO) report. While the report praises certain aspects of the way the estate is managed, especially its strategy of rationalising space, the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) is heavily critical of the BBC’s failure to meet its target of costs capped at 6 percent of licence fee income and the way the costs of some buildings are unacceptably high, including at the revamped Broadcasting House in London (above). According to the PAC, the running cost of the building is significantly more than others in the same area and around three times higher than a UK average. The BBC defended itself, highlighting progress in many parts of its estate and claiming that such comparisons did not stand up to scrutiny.

December 9, 2014

New Scotland Yard sold to Emirati investors for £370 million

by Mark Eltringham • News, Property, Public Sector

Illustration: @SimonHeath1

The buyer of the Metropolitan Police’s Scotland Yard headquarters building has been confirmed as Abu Dhabi Financial Group (ADFG). The sale of the home of the Met as part of a huge shake-up of the police’s estate was first announced last year and last month news emerged that a buyer had been found, although details of the sale were withheld. The sale of the site to the Emirati investment group for £370 million is reported to be some £120 million more than the original asking price set by London Mayor Boris Johnson. The current building has been home to the Met since 1967 but the Mayor’s office felt the sale and freeing up of resources could benefit the force’s frontline operations. The sale is part of a wider shake-up of the police estate in London which has already seen the sale of 32 buildings, raising £125 million. The restructuring programme is expected to complete in 2016 and is estimated to save around £60 million each year in running costs.

December 9, 2014

Government must beef up the way it manages outsourced contracts

by Gary Watkins • Briefing, Comment, Facilities management, Public Sector

Any poorly-performing facilities management contract can result in financial and reputational loss, but where a government contract has been mismanaged, and there is a thirst for information on how the public purse has been spent, the repercussions can be major and the casualties high. The UK Government is the biggest spender on FM services, with £40 billion of outsourced contracts each year. However, in a recent report from the Public Accounts Committee and National Audit Office, contract management came in for stinging criticism. Evidence of overbilling, capacity issues, and poor governance and recordkeeping led to a very clear message that the Government must beef up its contract management. Procurement and contract management have been viewed traditionally as low-status in the civil service and, as a result, have been at the mercy of administration cuts and lack of investment.

November 28, 2014

NHS estate checks in for major surgery of leases and facilities management

by Mark Eltringham • Facilities management, News, Public Sector

The troubled organisation which looks after a £3 billion chunk of the NHS estate is set to launch an extensive review of its enormous portfolio of offices, hospitals, health centres and GP practices. According to a report on commercial property website CoStar, the move comes as NHS Property Services gets to grips with structural problems in the way the estate is managed, not least the fact that over two thirds of its properties do not have documented leases in place, many facilities management services are provided without a contract in place and nobody seems aware of the true cost of running its estate of the thousands of individual sites involved. The health estate has come under mounting scrutiny over the past two years following the setting up of NHS Property Services in April 2013 as part of the Government’s plans to modernise and rationalise the public sector property portfolio.

November 25, 2014

Focus of investment should be skills, broadband and local transport say CEOs

by Mark Eltringham • News, Property, Public Sector, Technology

The Government should focus investment on the development of skills and broadband if it wants to drive economic growth. That is the message from a survey of 100 British CEOs carried out by Grant Thornton. Key findings of the report include the fact that 70 percent of respondents would like to see better access to training and development opportunities, 59 percent want to see an improvement in digital infrastructure and 57 percent would like more spending on roads. The Government’s flagship schemes – the Heathrow expansion, HS2 and the proposed new trans-Pennine railway receive a lukewarm response, with the majority of respondents appearing more keen on greater investment in existing long distance rail services, local public transport networks and the greater use of the UK’s underutilised regional airports. There is also a mixed response to plans for greater devolution with support only if regional Governments don’t add another layer of bureaucracy for businesses.The report has been published ahead of next week’s Autumn Statement by Chancellor George Osborne.

November 14, 2014

EU institutions are not implementing their own green building policies

by Mark Eltringham • Environment, Facilities management, News, Public Sector

According to a report on EU news site euractiv.com, the various institutions of the European Union have been ‘unambitious’ in terms of delivering energy efficiency as part of their own buildings strategies. That is the key finding of a new study from the European Court of Auditors. which claims that green building standards and initiatives developed and promoted by the EU are not consistently employed for new buildings or as part of major renovation projects carried out by bodies such as the European Commission, European Parliament, EU Council and other institutions. The special report reveals shortcomings in the approach of these bodies, calls on the EU Commission to propose a common policy for reducing the carbon footprint of EU institutions and bodies and proposes the setting of an overall reduction target for greenhouse gas emissions by the year 2030. The report claims that it is through the design processes of a new building, or for a major renovation, that the greatest impact can be made on its energy performance and this should be the focus of its proposed new approach.

November 5, 2014

Failure to adopt strategic facilities management costs UK £1bn annually

by Mark Eltringham • Facilities management, News, Public Sector

A new report from the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) claims that over a quarter of UK organisations are failing to adopt a strategic approach to facilities management. For those firms without this approach, the annual average cost is calculated by the report’s authors as £120,000, suggesting a total cost to the economy of nearly £1 billion. The claim is based on a study of around 700 organisations in both the public and private sector and across a range of organisational types and sizes. Around half of those with a ‘dedicated FM programme’ said that doing so had saved their organisation money, 59 per cent reported an increase in productivity, a fifth (21 percent)reported a drop in absenteeism and nearly half (49 percent) claimed it had made them more attractive to customers. The best results were recorded in the public sector with 70 per cent saying strategic facilities management had increased productivity and 71 percent claiming they had seen an increase in employee engagement.

October 31, 2014

UK Government announces new research programme into workplace wellbeing

by Mark Eltringham • News, Public Sector, Workplace, Workplace design

The UK Government’s interest in what makes us happy continues unabated with the news that it has officially launched its new What Works Centre for Wellbeing. The centre will commission researchers to study ‘the impact that different interventions and services have on wellbeing’. It will focus initially on work and learning, communities, cultural and sporting activities. It claims that the results of the research will help the government, councils, health and wellbeing boards, charities and businesses make decisions on what ‘really matters for the wellbeing of people, communities and the nation as a whole’. The centre is the latest addition to the What Works Network, which was launched by the government last year to improve public services through evidence-based policy. It builds on the work of the Office for National Statistics which has been tasked with measuring national wellbeing, and of the Commission on Wellbeing and Policy.

October 13, 2014

HS2 will generate £40 billion in economic benefits and a surge of investment in office space, claims new report

by Mark Eltringham • News, Property, Public Sector

According to a report published today in The Daily Telegraph, the UK’s new HS2 high speed rail network will encourage housebuilding and commercial property development as part of a £40 billion boost to the UK economy. The report, produced by consultants EY, also suggests that new developments around the main stations along the route, including Birmingham, Manchester and West London would generate some £1 billion a year before the route’s completion in 2035, including some 850,000 sq ft of new office space. The newspaper claims the full report will be released by the Government this week as part of its campaign to win support for the controversial scheme and that its content will be a major talking point at this week’s MIPIM which takes place for the first time in London. It was revealed recently that the Government now expects the scheme to cost £73 billion, a figure which critics, including Mayor of London Boris Johnson claim could be spent more wisely.

October 10, 2014

Case study: A public sector building that lights the way ahead for others

by Mark Eltringham • Case studies, Facilities management, Public Sector, Workplace design

The new offices of Wiltshire County Council, Trowbridge

Last year, I had the pleasure of producing a case study of the new offices of Wiltshire County Council for Mix Interiors magazine. Given that the building was this week shortlisted for the Prime Minister’s Better Public Buildings Award and had already won an award from the BCO, we thought this seemed a good time to retread its corridors of power…. The recession has led the UK government to develop a number of new approaches to public sector buildings. But some of the UK’s local authorities are way ahead of the new thinking. Even so, there was a time, not so long ago, when nobody worried too much about the shape of the rooms that led off the corridors of power. But the pressure on UK public finances has politicised the design of the UK’s public buildings, with the government launching a wide range of initiatives to improve the efficiency of the way public sector acquires, designs and runs the places it calls home.