Value for Money
Maintaining public service facilities
Published 22 January 2025
11 recommendations
Cabinet Office, Cross-government
People and operationsProperty and estates
nao.org.uk
The public spending watchdog has estimated that the government’s maintenance backlog is at least £49 billion.
Recommendations (11)
Source: NAO Recommendations Tracker
Cabinet Office
Rec 1
Accepted
Work in Progress
The OGP should mandate to departments and ALBs that they use the standardised definition of maintenance backlog, as defined by the OGP by March 2026, so the true figure across government can be calculated;
Cabinet Office
Rec 10
Accepted
Work in Progress
Government departments should ensure that all ALBs and public funded buildings are in scope of departmental SAMP or produce one themselves
Cabinet Office
Rec 11
Accepted
Work in Progress
Government departments should undertake a full risk assessment of the impact of condition on their service delivery (using the OGP risk impact assessment tool), and update their departmental risk registers by the end of Q4 2025-26
Cabinet Office
Rec 2
Accepted
Work in Progress
The OGP should include data on the maintenance backlog in the State of the Estate reports from 2026-27 onward
Cabinet Office
Rec 3
Accepted
Work in Progress
The OGP should work with departments to develop a strategic plan for the government to contain and then reduce the maintenance backlog, backed up by a longer-term cross-government programme.
Cabinet Office
Rec 4
Accepted
Implemented
Ahead of the next Comprehensive Spending Review and beyond, HMT should consider agreeing longer-term settlements for property investment for those organisations that have robust long-term strategic asset management plans, additional controls to prevent necessary maintenance funding from being diverted to other spending areas, and make greater use of cross-departmental funding pots to tackle problems arising across government property.
Cabinet Office
Rec 5
Accepted
Implemented
As part of its business-as-usual activities, HMT should ensure that business cases for new builds include assessments of the benefits of new buildings versus the maintenance of existing property, or explain why the government cannot achieve its objectives solely by maintaining existing properties. Equally, business cases for maintenance should include an assessment of whether a new building would deliver better value for money
Cabinet Office
Rec 6
Accepted
Work in Progress
The OGP should work with departments to ensure they include actionable property workforce plans in their strategic workforce plans
Cabinet Office
Rec 7
Accepted
Work in Progress
The OGP should use the data it collects on the property profession and future projections of property professionals to make recommendations to departments about addressing skills gaps in property roles, to enable them to oversee contractors and ALBs with large and complex property portfolios effectively
Cabinet Office
Rec 8
Accepted
Work in Progress
Government departments should use the new standardised condition and backlog data tools to provide comprehensive condition and backlog data to OGP for inclusion in the 2026-27 State of the Estate report
Cabinet Office
Rec 9
Accepted
Work in Progress
Government departments should update their SAMP by the end of Q4 2026-27 to include a long-term property plan, which sets out the capital needs of the service over the next 10 or more years, and a plan to reduce their backlog