October 9, 2014

Winner and shortlist announced for UK Prime Minister’s Better Public Building Award

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

Wiltshire County Council Offices

The (rather long) shortlist of nominees for the Prime Minister’s Better Public Building Award 2014 has been announced by the UK Cabinet Office. Hosted as part of The British Construction Industry Awards which aim to ‘recognise all-round excellence in construction, including the overall design, and delivery of buildings and civil engineering projects’ the award’s original nominees were assessed on a range of standards including economic and social value. As well as the rather impressive new headquarters for Wiltshire County Council (above), the Government claims the shortlist includes a college building that is engineered to be one of the quietest buildings in the country as well as a building that will almost entirely be powered by fish oil. Previous winners include Tate Modern and the Velodrome at the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. The Government, ever keen to be down with the kids, has produced a Buzzfeed feature on the nominated projects.

October 3, 2014

Vital role of FM in success of an organisation illustrated in latest RICS case studies

by Sara Bean • Facilities management, News, Property, Public Sector, Technology

The utilisation of Building Information Modelling (BIM) to innovate FM within a business, and the way in which strategic FM can help boost the wellbeing of employees are two of the latest case studies launched by the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) aimed at illustrating the vital role played by FM in the success of an organisation. The case studies, produced by International Workplace, and available to download here, outline how businesses, large and small, can utilise strategic FM to enhance their business’ output. Through organisations as varied as The Royal BAM Group and the Hong Kong Jockey Club, the theme of professionalising FM is brought to life and explained using tangible, real life examples. Speaking at the launch of the case studies, held at KPMG, featured for its living wage initiative, Neil Murray, Managing Director at Sodexo UK talked about the contribution FMs can make to an organisation by making it a better place to work. More →

October 3, 2014

An end to ‘Whitehall Palaces’ as UK government publishes new estates strategy

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

The UK Government has published an update to its Estates Strategy which it claims will build on its successes of the past four years and spell the end for ‘Whitehall Palaces’. The Government Estates Strategy sets out how the administration plans to make the most efficient and cost-effective use of its property. The first strategy document was published in 2013, but the Government had already by then been looking at ways to downsize and improve the operations of its estate. The new document claims to ‘reflect good progress so far and expands on the scope of work, using the estate to provide better integrated public services and to enable economic growth.’ The report also claims that since 2010 departments have shrunk the central Government estate by over two million square metres as civil service numbers have also reduced by 17 percent, saving around £600 million a year in running costs and generating around £1.4 billion in sales of land and buildings.

September 26, 2014

Generation Y make the most trusting managers, finds ILM report

by Sara Bean • News, Public Sector, Workplace

Maintaining high levels of trust at work helps to foster an engaged and productive atmosphere, finds a new report by the Institute of Leadership & Management (ILM), which reveals the youngest generation to be the most trusting and those working within the public sector the least trusting. The truth about trust, honesty and integrity at work found that the millennial generation of managers (born 1981 onwards), are the most likely to trust those within their organisation (54%), followed by baby boomers (born between 1946–1964), almost half of whom (45%) say they trust everyone or almost everyone. Generation X, those born between 1965–1980, had the lowest level of respondents saying they trust everyone or almost everyone (44%) at work. The research also reveals that the five fundamental skills and qualities that leaders need in order to be trusted are openness, effective communication, the ability to make decisions, integrity and competence in their role. More →

September 23, 2014

Government invites responses on EU public sector procurement regs

by Mark Eltringham • Legal news, News, Public Sector

The UK Government is inviting firms to contribute to a new consultation on the implementation of the latest EU draft regulations for public sector procurement. The Government claims that the consultation follows two years negotiation with the EU on the simplification and modernisation of public sector purchasing and its results will help them to implement the 2014 EU Public Sector Directive effectively and in the best way. The ultimate aim of the new regulations is to make public sector procurement ‘faster and less costly and will lead to better value outcomes for government, industry, and the wider public sector’. The consultation document can be found here. Responses should be emailed to transposition@cabinet-office.gsi.gov.uk or in writing to Crown Commercial Service Helpdesk, Cabinet Office, Rosebery Court, Norwich, NR7 0HS.

September 19, 2014

England’s local authorities acting like property developers, claims report

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

England’s local authorities are responding to the country’s ongoing austerity measures by behaving more like property developers as they seek to redevelop property and land valued at £13.5 billion by 2019, according to a new report from local government think tank Localis in conjunction with developer Cathedral Group. Rather than simply selling off assets, the research claims that councils are increasingly looking to develop property to provide them with revenue streams as a way of shoring up their shrinking budgets. The report claims that the proportion of projects slated for redevelopment is currently a third of all disposals but will make up the majority in five years time. The report has received cross party support and links to other high profile public sector initiatives, especially the One Public Sector Estate scheme. The Cabinet Office recently reported that the UK public sector estate had shrunk by 2 m. sq. ft. since 2010.

September 15, 2014

Key to successful BIM implementation is collaboration, says RICS

by Sara Bean • Architecture, Facilities management, News, Property, Public Sector

The need for collaboration between all the professions working within the built environment was the overriding theme of a free seminar on BIM, hosted by RICS last week, reports RICS’ Schemes and Accreditation Manager Jon Klahn. The event featured speakers from quantity surveying, engineering and architecture, and was designed to help delegates learn more about BIM and RICS’ role in establishing BIM industry standards. Addressing the 80 plus attendees, Dr Anne Kemp FRICS, Director of BIM Strategy and Development at Atkins and Chair of ICE’s BIM Action Group said the various professions can no longer be driven by self-interest. BIM in itself is not the solution. But the change required to make BIM successful will ultimately allow for better construction, better buildings and a better environment. Successful BIM implementation requires a partnership of people, process and technology and for project teams to understand and appreciate each other’s roles as professionals. More →

September 8, 2014

Two new reports highlight major public sector procurement failings

by Mark Eltringham • Facilities management, News, Public Sector

A newly published review from the UK’s National Audit Office claim that the poor management of the country’s public sector procurement function means that fraud is widespread to the tune of tens of billions of pounds. The review found that a lack of oversight and a belief that some contracts are too important to fail open the doors to fraud. A separate NAO report also claims that the function is given a low priority and too often is more interested in just getting deals signed and out of the way than thinking about how contracts function in practice. The review into the level of fraud and overcharging in Government outsourced contracts which was carried out in the wake of the high profile of the cases of ‘bad practice’ by G4S and Serco claims that the public purse may be exposed by as much as £40 billion. Five government contracts are already under investigation by police or the Serious Fraud Office, according to the report and more will follow.

September 4, 2014

The myths and the memes of public sector purchasing waste

by Justin Miller • Comment, Facilities management, Public Sector, Workplace design

There has always been a certain degree of skepticism within the UK’s business community about the way the public sector goes about buying goods and services. Some of it is justified but some is unfair. The efforts of successive governments to address the problem demonstrates that there is always a will to improve things. So while a recent BBC Panorama documentary highlighted claims from one report that the NHS loses billions each year thanks to a range of errors and fraud in its procurement processes, we might also ask whether an equivalent private sector organisation with an annual budget of £109 billion would not also be open to a wide range of eye-wateringly expensive failures and inefficiencies. Unfortunately there is a tendency in the media to want to expose ‘waste’ in public sector purchasing, which can politicise what are perfectly reasonable decisions, when you examine them.

August 26, 2014

Mode of transport when commuting determines health and happiness

by Mark Eltringham • News, Public Sector, Workplace

New research published in the British Medical Journal last week has confirmed the perhaps obvious fact that people who drive to work are generally less healthy and more overweight than those who get to work in other ways. More surprisingly, the report also found that using public transport to commute may be just as beneficial to healthy as cycling. The report suggests that with nearly 24 million people regularly commuting to work each day in England and Wales, its results based long term research with a sample of 16,000 people should have significant implications for Government infrastructure policy, urban design and individual workplace policies. “Policies designed to effect a population-level modal shift to more active modes of work commuting therefore present major opportunities for public health improvement”, it concludes.

August 11, 2014

Government extends public estate scheme as DCLG moves in with Home Office

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

The UK government has announced that it is to extend its groundbreaking One Public Estate scheme to a further twenty local authorities. The programme aims to divest and consolidate government-owned land and property to cut public sector spending and boost economic growth and regeneration. The government believes the initial phase will save £21m in running costs and £88m in capital receipts, generate around £40m for local economies and create an estimated 5,500 jobs and 7,500 homes over the next five years. The Cabinet Office is now looking to build on this with the extension of the schemes to councils including Liverpool and Birmingham city centres as well as six from Greater Manchester and Cornwall, Southampton and Plymouth. The Government Property Unit will provide funding and training to the participating authorities.

July 11, 2014

UK public sector spends twice as much on outsourcing as the private sector

by Mark Eltringham • Facilities management, News, Public Sector

The UK’s public sector spends almost twice as much on outsourced services as the country’s private sector, according to research from the Information Services Group. The study claims that the total contract value of public sector outsourcing agreements over the last two years was £51 billion, compared with £30 billion for the commercial sector. In that time, a total of 585 public sector contracts were awarded. Although volumes are lower than those of the commercial sector (726 contracts), this number represents nearly a threefold increase in public sector activity since the pre-recessionary period (2006-2007). While the commercial sector has seen a shift toward smaller contracts over the past two years, the public sector has seen a reduction in the number of smaller contracts, from 46 percent of the market in 2010-2011, to 40 percent. While the number of large contracts remains steady, growth in the sector is largely driven by contracts valued at between £15 million and £30 million.