Select committee: Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee
Conclusion 18
Eighth Report - Where Civil Servants Work: Planning for the future of the Government’s estates
Published 27 Jul 2023
Paragraph 98
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)
Overall, the Cabinet Office has a number of successes to point to regarding the Places for Growth and Government Hubs programmes. The number of posts allocated to regional offices under Places for Growth is growing rapidly, and HMRC and the GPA have made significant progress in meeting their objectives of consolidating the office portfolio into a smaller number of larger, more modern buildings. However, these promising signs are undermined to an extent by weaknesses in the framing, reporting, and rationale for these programmes. Notably the reported economic and cultural benefits of civil service relocation have not been clearly demonstrated.
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 98, 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.