Recommendation 11

There are some signs in the last two to three years that the Department has started to get a better grip of optimising its estate. The new Permanent Secretary told us that the Department now has good prospects for delivering its estate optimisation plans in the future, driven by a mindset of “delivery, delivery, delivery”.15 In 2018, it delegated budgets and liability for managing the estate back to TLBs, which the Department explained puts accountability and responsibility in the same place. The Department told us that it will be giving TLBs mandates in the next few months to start implementing and delivering each of their various programmes.16 Since May 2020, the DEO Portfolio has had revised governance arrangements which set out responsibilities for delivering and monitoring programmes within the Portfolio. The Department has established a central coordinating team which provides oversight and guidance to the Portfolio. This team also supports the Portfolio Board, which provides direction on implementing the Department’s strategy and holds the TLBs to account.17