Select committee: Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee
Conclusion 10
Eighth Report - Where Civil Servants Work: Planning for the future of the Government’s estates
Published 27 Jul 2023
Paragraph 74
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)
Previous governments which implemented similar programmes of civil service relocation acknowledged the risks and potential disadvantages–for example, significant upfront costs of relocation and redundancy packages, plus a loss of efficiency and coherence from moving policy roles far away from Whitehall. The Government is doing things differently this time–for example, generally recruiting new starters to regional offices to fill vacancies when they arise rather than relocating existing staff relying on videoconferencing, and seeking to relocate more SCS posts in order to create more senior career pathways outside London. This approach does, however, present novel risks, such as the potential development of a two-tier departmental culture, if regional offices mainly comprise new starters who have never worked in Whitehall. A further risk is that departments may be exclusively filling vacancies to locations outside London, even where such posts require significant presence in London, in order to meet Places for Growth targets.
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 74, 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.