Select committee: Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee
Conclusion 7
Eighth Report - Where Civil Servants Work: Planning for the future of the Government’s estates
Published 27 Jul 2023
Paragraph 62
Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee Planning for the future of the Government’s estates All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Conclusion (the committee's words)
In order to do its job effectively, the Government Property Agency needs good quality workforce plans from departments, enabling it to plan for the right size and location of government offices. This has been made more difficult by uncertainties resulting from government policy and communications. On the amount of time civil servants should work in the office (which thus affects the demand for office space), high-profile statements from Ministers have been at odds with key policy Where Civil Servants Work: Planning for the future of the Government’s estates 49 programmes. Meanwhile, the Government has made sudden and unclear statements about the size of the civil service, most recently stating both that it had scrapped targets for headcount reductions and that it was still committed to achieving the same scale of cuts but clarifying neither how this was to be achieved nor over what timescale.
From: Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee, Eighth Report - Where Civil Servants Work: Planning for the future of the Government’s estates (HC 793), paragraph 62, 27 July 2023
Government response
The government responded to the whole report on 18 October 2023.
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The Government states that it supports enhanced transparency and has "accepted recommendations where appropriate", while pointing to existing mechanisms on others and leaving some decisions with individual departments.
- On programme documentation, the Government says it "will publish relevant programme documentation" for Places for Growth and the Plan for London, and "will refresh the appropriate pages" to include purpose, objectives and critical success factors.
- On Cabinet meetings outside London, it states that planning must balance regional benefits with ministerial parliamentary availability and taxpayers' money, and that "for security reasons" it does not announce when and where meetings will take place.
- On civil service headcount, it says the policy of reducing numbers by 91,000 FTE "would not be pursued" and that any reductions are "for individual departments to determine".
- On the Government Property Agency's value for money, it states the Agency delivers "excellent value for money" and is undertaking a benefits review against its original business case, with no external review commitment stated.