Treasury Waste Money on Office Space

Posted on June 25, 2008 at 12:39 pm by Steven

It has been reported that civil servants in the Treasury are running up bills of £326 million per year on office accommodation making their yearly bill twice as much as workers in the private sector.

A report has been recently released by the Committee of Public Accounts stating that a third of the £1 billion costs shelled out per year on public sector office space could be cut back and saved. Office properties used by the Government departments were reported at being between 14% and 50% less cost effective than the benchmarks laid out by the private sector.

The Treasury came out as the biggest spender costing on average £12,041 per person with around 232 square feet allocated to each person. This is nearly double the 100 to 120 square feet that is the regular standard in the private sector.

Edward Leigh, the committee chairman stated:

There is room for improvement, given the poor performance of government buildings compared with the private sector. The Treasury should be setting an example to the other government departments, not bumping along in bottom place.

Perhaps the Government should take a look at the serviced office solutions that are now available across the UK. Cost savings of up to 60% can be made on office space using this method.