Council and democracy

Croydon calls for mandatory joined up public sector property planning

30 November 2006

The council is calling for mandatory sub-regional or area-based estate strategies in order to achieve substantial public sector savings.

It has been given the opportunity to contribute further to the Lyons inquiry following an earlier appearance at a seminar in Westminster chaired by Sir Michael Lyons.  On that occasion, some six weeks ago, cabinet member for finance and regeneration, Councillor Tim Pollard - substituting for council leader Mike Fisher - was briefly able to refer to the best practice solution during a presentation on Croydon’s innovative approach to asset management.  It was enough for Sir Michael to want to learn more and he invited the council to make a more detailed submission outlining its cash-saving proposals.

By using its own asset base as a catalyst for major regeneration in the borough, Croydon speaks from valuable experience when it comes to ploughing back property proceeds into new facilities.  Now, there is a chance that Croydon’s approach may be considered for adoption as a national pattern.

In its paper to the inquiry, Croydon argues that huge efficiencies could be gained, through economy of scale, by way of local, single public service access points where a range of public services are delivered in one place.

Through the borough’s own public sector property partnership, believed to be the only one of its kind, the council has already brought together the major public sector property occupiers in Croydon.  This includes the Home Office, Land Registry, Department of Work and Pensions as well as the health and voluntary sector.  But, says the council, although there is strong will from local representatives of the different organisations to work together, the key barrier that prevents greater co-operation and a united approach is that each organisation is currently required to follow its own regional or national estates strategy.

The only way to ensure that public sector agencies work together to achieve substantial economy of scale through rationalisation of property portfolios and the shared service agenda would be to make it mandatory for cross sector regional, sub-regional and local estate strategies to be produced, says Croydon.

By making it mandatory for a single public sector estate strategy to be produced for a particular locality, this will ensure that the various agencies have to plan their property occupation and property portfolios through a joined-up service provision.

Said Councillor Pollard:  “Although the location of property holdings should not dictate the way services are provided, invariably in the ‘real world’ it does. The approach we are proposing to the Lyons inquiry capitalises on what actually happens in practice and forces the public sector bodies to jointly plan their property and asset management at local level. The idea is simple but has not yet been adopted. It would merely be an empowerment of what local strategic partnerships would like to do - with enormous benefits in terms of efficiency and economy.”