The State of the Estate

The State of the Estate in 2008 (PDF, 2.2MB)

This is the first ever comprehensive annual report on the management and use of the government’s civil estate. It demonstrates clearly that Government is actively managing its estate and that it has the hard-edged information needed to drive improvements.

The government estate is a major asset, and it is important that it is managed efficiently for the taxpayer and the environment. The scale and complexity of the challenge is huge, considering its size.

The report highlights the achievements made on improving the efficiency of the estate over the year, and the progress on meeting government’s targets on the sustainability of buildings on the estate, including carbon reductions from its offices, and improvements in waste disposal, recycling and water consumption 

There are a number of areas of efficiency where, during 2008, Government is performing better than the private sector. Building costs per square metre are on average 5% better than private sector benchmarks and vacant space at an average of 2.4% of total office space is four times better than the national average for office vacancies. In addition 95% of the Government’s commitment to relocate 20,000 civil service posts from London and the South East by end March 2010, had been delivered by end December 2008, and Government remains on track to deliver the full commitment nearly 12 months ahead of target.

The report identifies areas for improvement, for example in meeting workspace benchmarks for many buildings on the estate, where age, historical significance, or configuration pose potential barriers. This factor has contributed to Government’s performance on space occupancy being on average 23% worse than benchmark (based on private sector best practice); although 31% of government buildings are already better than that benchmark.

Good progress is being made on carbon emission reductions, but there is still more to do in 2010/11 to improve the Display Energy Certificate (DEC) ratings of Government buildings.

As well as the continued drive to improve on efficiency and sustainability, challenges for 2009 include: the development of regional strategic estates strategies through the Civil service in the English Regions initiative; work on retrofitting and improving the energy efficiency of the estate; work on implementing the recommendations of Operational Efficiency Programme property review; and the development of a more collaborative approach to the procurement of facilities management services.

Full version of Annex C (PDF, 159KB)

Alongside the report, OGC has published guidance for departments on implementing the commitment to procure buildings in the top quartile of energy performance. A first report against this commitment is included in the report.