Agency of change: how the GPA plans to level up the UK

There is no one government department that can succeed in levelling up the UK, spreading wealth, jobs and regenerating the country so it delivers as a whole. But there is, potentially, a government agency. The Government Property Agency is working on onboarding every government department so that it can become the single custodian of the public estate, acting as its manager to make sure that the government covenant is utilised properly, not just to bring value to the taxpayer but to do its bit to unite the country, creating places and bringing jobs to every corner of the UK. Chair Pat Ritchie and chief executive Steven Boyd are keen to emphasise that the agency is doing more than just delivering on the government’s hubs programme; they want it to become a single, powerful voice representing the role of the government estate in providing both flexible and valuable workspace up and down the country. “We’ve got four strategic objectives that we work hard to tie everything into,” says Boyd. “And supporting growth across the UK is the first of those.” The agency’s other objectives are supporting the transformation of the civil services, delivering on the government’s net zero pledge and providing best value. Levelling up The hubs programme forms a huge part of the GPA’s first strategic objective. So far, 17 government hubs have been announced across the UK that will see some 22,000 civil servants move out of London to the regions. “It’s a significant commercial office programme across the UK, in every nation and every region of the UK, that will really make a difference,” says Boyd. A difference, not just in delivering a regenerative tool to regions across the UK, but a difference to policy and the careers of many civil servants. Most recently, government announced plans to establish a treasury function in Darlington, with the relatively small northern town beating off competition from Bradford, Leeds, Newcastle and Tees Valley. Ritchie says the hubs will enable the civil service to put a different lens on how they do policy, and to be less London-centric in their views. “If you’ve got civil servants working in places like Peterborough or Darlington or Birmingham, it brings a different perspective to how people view the world,” she says. “And that is deliberately seen as part of the levelling up agenda. Government is keen to invest in regeneration, local employment and economic development in places that maybe haven’t had as much support. But it is also keen to make sure that policymaking is spread across the country, such as the treasury’s move to Darlington or Wolverhampton for the MHCLG. “Our role is to enable that through property investment,” adds Ritchie. “We take the view as an organisation that our buildings should be embedded in the place, be part of the fabric of a place, and that they should contribute skills and wealth into town and city centres. If you’ve got a few hundred or a few thousand civil servants in a city centre, it creates footfall, it creates a buzz. It’s really important post-Covid to ensure that we retain that investment in places. And our role is to deliver that for the government.” Beyond hubs The GPA currently has around one-quarter of central government’s 32m sq ft office estate under its management. That estate includes large and small offices across the UK – buildings on which it can act as a more commercially-minded estates manager, utilising the government covenant to get better deals when leases come up for renewal and its property nous to maximise space for a new era of work. “We shouldn’t just think about the hubs,” says Boyd. “There’s a very big estate that’s just as much our responsibility as the hubs are.” For both Boyd and Ritchie it is that network of offices that has a big role to play in creating communities across the UK and in providing a foundation for collaboration with local government and the private sector. “Community is a word that we talk about a lot,” says Boyd. “We want to enable the community within a group of departments and across a number of buildings, but we also want to enable the community across the public sector, and that might be through sharing with the local authority.” He adds: “One of the things we want to do is to build on the existing network of offices, consolidate them and transform them into modern facilities that are more conducive to shared working.” The GPA will eventually take over the management of the entire government estate. Instead of individual departments negotiating leases and doing their own property deals, the GPA will act as a universal estate manager taking a single view of the whole estate. And it is this, says Ritchie, that will help central government become more geographically diverse. Boyd says that as more and more assets fall under the management of the GPA, he is able to have more conversations with secretaries of state about estate strategies and about how they utilise their assets to assist the levelling up agenda. It is a move that not only brings monetary benefits to government and the taxpayer, says Boyd, but one that brings the non-cash benefits of community creation, regeneration and localised career opportunities. Joined-up practices By connecting the government estate, the more flexible working practices that have been accelerated by the Covid pandemic will be more easily implemented, he says. As well as being a custodian of the physical estate of government, the GPA has been instrumental in defining the working practices of civil servants. It played a vital role in enabling civil servants to continue to work as the country was put into lockdown and, throughout the pandemic, it has been working hard to understand how a linked estate can enable careers to develop outside of London. Ritchie says: “As well as the investment in the hubs facilities, there’s a need for a closer working relationship between departments because multi-departmental spaces could facilitate – and we’re keen that they do facilitate – greater join-up with local government and with other partners in the public sector. You could, for example, see your career in the North being based in Leeds, with some time in Darlington, or you may want to go into local authority in Manchester, and so on. “If we can create that kind of permeability, you get into a different way of thinking about how you have a critical mass through which you can build your career, as opposed to having to go to London to do it. And that’s where I think there’s a really interesting contribution from GPA.” It is an interesting way to look at the government estate. In the past, much of the conversation has been about how to reduce the government estate to save money. Today, the GPA seems to be much more focused on how to modernise the government estate and on starting to view real estate as an enabler. “We definitely see property as an enabler, rather than the thing we are doing,” says Boyd. “In five years’ time, it would be nice if people recognised that there had been a step-change in the way the government estate, particularly the office portfolio, was being managed and knew where the local buildings were and that that was representative of them and the UK.” As Ritchie has already pointed out, the role of the GPA is to enable government to become part of a place, to understand it so that it can create policies that will work for the country as a whole and enable it to level up. It is a role that no single department can deliver, but that one agency at least has the ambition to achieve. Leeds and the appeal of government relocations By Paul Fairhurst, head of Savills, Leeds The appeal of Leeds to occupiers across all sectors continues to grow, but it is the public sector in particular that has drawn a lot of attention in recent years when it comes to office moves and relocations. In August 2017, the city attracted a major government hub relocation when HMRC and NHS Digital agreed a significant prelet of 378,000 sq ft at MEPC’s Wellington Place scheme in the city centre. Since then, murmurings of further relocations have continued and in the March 2021 budget it was announced that the newly formed UK Infrastructure Bank is to be housed in Leeds. The Department of Transport has also been rumoured to be bringing hundreds of jobs to Leeds, as well as to Birmingham, through the creation of regional hubs and, further afield, York has been promised jobs within the Cabinet Office. Although there must be the caveat that while these prospects are hugely exciting and will no doubt provide a boost to the Yorkshire economy, there is still, so far, limited intelligence on numbers and timings. So, what is it about Leeds that attracts such interest? First, the city is scarcely recognisable compared with 15 years ago and, as the old adage goes, success breeds success. Channel 4, Burberry, Sky and Sky Bet have all recognised the benefits of the city and numerous government departments are already happily located here. Furthermore, strong universities and high graduate retention rates, coupled with a readily available skilled labour force and strong growth sectors across technology, digital and healthcare all create a sound appeal to prospective occupiers. If you add to that the desirability of living close to the Yorkshire Dales and the North Yorkshire Moors, and the connectivity to both London and Edinburgh, it is clear to see why Leeds is looked upon so favourably. To send feedback, e-mail samantha.mcclary@eg.co.uk or tweet @samanthamcclary or @EGPropertyNews