More than £2bn secured through shrinking estate

Latest data released by the Cabinet Office shows the size of the government estate has dropped by almost a third over the past 10 years, securing more than £2 billion.

The government’s State of the Estate 2018-2019 report shows that the government estate, which is made up of buildings across the country, is now 30 per cent smaller than it was in 2010. In the past year alone, 339 former government sites have been disposed of – returning £2.1 billion to the public coffers.

Over the past year, efforts to reduce the size of the government estate have seen 277,000 square metres of property disposed of, while the cost of running the estate has also fallen by £50 million a year.

Cabinet Office Minister, Jeremy Quin, said: “Reducing the size of the government estate saves taxpayers money. It also provides opportunities for both the commercial and residential sectors and helps drive efficiency across government.”

The Cabinet Office is also pursuing an agenda to make the civil service less London-centric. A number of government Hubs are under development, with civil servants from different departments co-locating outside central London, including in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Newcastle, Leeds, Manchester, Liverpool, Belfast, Nottingham, Birmingham, Cardiff and Bristol.

John O’Connell, chief executive of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said: “Taxpayers will be pleased to hear that ministers are getting a grip on the government’s massive property portfolio, unleashing land to be used for housing and business developments. With billions tied up in buildings and prime Whitehall real estate, selling sites is a great way to cut costs for taxpayers, at a time when the majority of voters want to see more central government offices and jobs moved outside of London. This should signal the start of a drive for departments to divest themselves of as much underused property as possible.”