Value for Money
Managing central government property
Published 15 July 2022
9 recommendations
Cabinet Office
People and operationsProperty and estates
nao.org.uk
This study examines how the Cabinet Office maintains, oversees and manages central government property.
Recommendations (9)
Source: NAO Recommendations Tracker · PAC follow-up below
Cabinet Office
Rec 1
Accepted
Implemented
a) ensure each property portfolio has an identified single lead by December 2022. The lead should have clear responsibilities and objectives related to their portfolio and provide a consistent set of information to support central oversight; and
Cabinet Office
Rec 2
Accepted
Work in Progress
b) analyse the plans for each portfolio by location to identify any duplication and understand where efficiencies can be achieved. It should track the actions taken and monitor the savings that are made across government as a result of its work.
Cabinet Office
Rec 3
Accepted
Work in Progress
c) The OGP should:
? take prompt and decisive action to establish its new property asset register, InSite, minimising additional cost to the taxpayer; and
? analyse how and why the inSite project has failed to meet its goals and deadlines, producing lessons learned that can be used to inform future digital projects.
Alongside this, the OGP should continue its work to:
? agree data improvement plans with the departments that have outstanding
data readiness issues;
? assess whether it has the capability to manage and analyse the
cross-government data it is collecting as part of the InSite programme
and put in place appropriate actions to rectify this if not; and
? collect property utilisation data from across central government and
analyse them to identify opportunities for co-locations and sub-letting
or disposing of under-utilised space.
Cabinet Office
Rec 4
Accepted
Work in Progress
d) The Cabinet Office should work with departments to prepare workforce plans for the next five years. These plans should then be consolidated to produce a single view of workforce plans by year and region.
Cabinet Office
Rec 5
Accepted
Implemented
g) The OGP should:
? support departments to improve maturity of property skills; and
? monitor departments? level of skills against the functional standard to ensure they are being met across government; collect data on the impact and benefits of OGP?s training initiatives; and act on these data to ensure training resources are targeted and deployed most effectively to ensure that the functional standard is being met.
Cabinet Office
Rec 6
Accepted
Implemented
e) The OGP should measure if the expected programme benefits set out in the 2018 government estate strategy have been achieved. It should assess whether change has been realised and disseminate the lessons learned to date from delivering those programmes.
Cabinet Office
Rec 7
Accepted
Implemented
f) The OGP and GPA should:
? discuss with the departments which have not yet agreed the transfer of their offices their onboarding plans and agree on whether these plans remain achievable and represent value for money; and
? assess whether the estimated benefits from consolidating government property, and from the hubs programme, remain realistic. If not, the GPA should re-baseline the benefits estimate for both these programmes.
Cabinet Office
Rec 8
Accepted
Implemented
h) The OGP should:
? work with HM Treasury to consider what longer-term financial settlements are available to best incentivise long-term value for money decisions about government property; and
? work with portfolio leads to identify any efficiencies from ways of working during the COVID-19 pandemic that can be sustained.
Cabinet Office
Rec 9
Accepted
Implemented
i) The OGP should set out key performance indicators and interim milestones for each of the objectives in its upcoming property strategy
Parliamentary Committee Follow-Up
The Public Accounts Committee examined this NAO report and published its own recommendations. The government responds to PAC recommendations via Treasury Minutes.
Thirty-First Report - Managing central government property
Public Accounts Committee
· 21 December 2022
· 13 recommendations