Recommendation 17

In 2016, the Department expected the DEO Portfolio would reduce the size of the built estate by 25%, and that other sales would reduce it by 5%. However, since 2016 the Department has shifted emphasis from primarily identifying land to sell to ‘optimising’ its use of the estate. This change, coupled with the requirements of the recent Integrated Review, essentially renders this single target to reduce the size of the estate by 30% meaningless.25 The Department admitted it will get nowhere near the target, and by 2040–41 it now expects to reduce the built estate by just 13% (10,100 hectares) through the DEO Portfolio and by 3% (2,000 hectares) from other sales. It also expects to sell 35 training sites comprising 0.5% of its rural estate (855 hectares). The Department wrote to us after the evidence session and confirmed that the 30% target is no longer appropriate and will not be pursued.26 It recognises that it needs more specific targets focussing on deliverables over the lifetime of this Parliament to encourage it to identify and dispose of land it no longer needs, but it could not tell us what these should be.27 Management information