InFocus: News and views from the GPA (December 2022)
InFocus brings together news and views from across the Government Property Agency
News and views from across the Government Property Agency
WELCOME TO INFOCUS, December 22
Yvette Greener, Client Director
We are quickly approaching the end of another year and it’s hard to believe it’s time to pull out the Christmas jumpers again, already.
Our acquisitions and transfers this year has seen our property portfolio grow to more than £1.9 billion of assets, and over 900,000 square metres. This equates to 41% of the Government’s office portfolio. And we’ve deployed interoperability products across 85,000 square metres of office space which is allowing civil servants to be more connected than ever before.
This year saw our first Hub officially open in Birmingham. We reached topping out at our Croydon Hub, and are preparing to begin inductions at our first new-build Hub in Peterborough which will open its doors at the end of January 2023. We also announced a new Hub in Manchester, First Street.
We signed our first ever Strategic Partner Charter with Atkins and AECOM, committing to ways of working that underpin how we deliver our solutions for you. And we welcomed BNP Paribas Real Estate to the GPA as a new strategic partner for our property and property-related financial services. We have also greatly improved our data capabilities with new technology solutions including Planon and MRI’s Horizon.
Our Workplace Services Transformation Programme continues at pace as we progress our procurement for a performance partner. This partner will monitor our facilities management suppliers across the UK.
And most recently, we proudly provided an agile and rapid response for Operation BRIDGES following the sad passing of Her Majesty The Queen Elizabeth II.
We have achieved some great successes this year, and are very aware we have areas to improve on. Your engagement with our regular client satisfaction surveys is allowing us to understand how we can better support you. And our client managers are always on hand to keep you updated and supported.
Thank you for continuing this journey with us.
In this issue:
- Supporting our clients to keep energy costs down
- Procuring for best value and service delivery
- Strengthening our data-driven approach
- Peterborough Hub achieves practical completion
- Bristol, Temple Quay House refurbishment begins
- Smarter Working Live Conference returns for 2023
Supporting our clients to keep energy costs down
Our commitment to identifying efficiencies across the Government’s office portfolio spans carbon emissions, property costs, workspace utilisation and energy usage. Our initiatives and interventions are helping to offset some of the ongoing energy price increases, while also reducing the UK’s carbon footprint.
We implement a range of products and initiatives across our buildings to minimise energy usage such as upgrades to lighting, heating ventilation and air conditioning, as well as solar photovoltaic (solar panels) installations. And we design in initiatives as early as possible, such as decarbonised power supplies from the construction stage. We also procure our electricity from renewable sources.
All new Government Hubs are built to the Government Workplace Design Guide Net Zero and Sustainability Annexes which include the requirement for lighting sensors / controls and daylight dimming, and are built with energy efficiency measures as standard.
Our Net Zero Programme aims to retrofit energy efficiency measures across the Government’s office portfolio. And our Facilities Management contracts are challenging suppliers to further maximise efficiencies across our buildings to ensure greater savings for our clients and customers.
Responding to pricing challenges
European gas and electricity prices have been on the rise since Summer 2021. The Crown Commercial Services (CCS) bought most of the expected demand for this current financial year well in advance. This provides some protection to budgets for those departments on the CCS framework.
For subsequent financial years the impact of the market increases has again been limited by purchases made before prices spiked. However, energy spend is nonetheless forecast to increase, and a lack of market liquidity is making forward hedging difficult.
For those clients or customers on standard variable rates, we envisage that with the Government’s newly announced Energy Bill Relief Scheme, costs will decrease for the scheme’s six-month period.
To support our clients’ financial planning, our Finance team is working on amended forecasts for utility costs for FY 23/24 and will be in touch soon.
Procuring for best value and service delivery
The Workplace Services Transformation Programme (WSTP) continues at pace with our Commercial and Project teams working together to ensure we obtain the right outcomes for you on a number of ongoing procurements.
Facilities Management
Although we have had some initial delays to evaluation, the programme remains on track. Responses to the Facilities Management (FM) procurements closed mid-November. The bids will now be evaluated against Quality and Price, to ensure we receive the best value.
The evaluation period takes two to three months, given the high value of the contracts. We will provide further updates in Q1 2023.
Performance Partner
We are in the process of appointing a Performance Partner (PP) to help the ongoing engagement and monitoring of chosen suppliers for our FM services. There will be a period of mobilisation with the suppliers to define the key performance measurements so that we have agreed targets across the estate.
Physical Security
We have completed the evaluation phase of the Physical Security procurement and are on track to award the contract in early 2023.
FM Digital Platform
In conjunction with the PP phase, we are also procuring a supplier to develop a digital platform which will monitor all elements of the FM contracts. The platform will provide a single integrated system to manage and monitor progress, service requests, incidents, reports, etc
Our focus on value and service delivery is ensuring we place you at the heart of our decisions as we continue to create great places to work across the UK.
Strengthening our data-driven approach
We have signed a new two-year contract with MRI for its Horizon property management digital tool. The contract continues our relationship with MRI and will optimise Horizon to enhance the services we provide to you.
Horizon will be used by us and BNP Paribas Real Estate - our newly appointed property partner - to manage property data and inform timely decision making across our growing portfolio.
This contract award comes on the back of the award of a new contract to Planon in May this year. Planon supports workplace performance management, condition improvement and space optimisation.
Together, Horizon and Planon will equip us with strong data to enable better informed decision making. This ensures our properties operate more efficiently and save costs across our office portfolio, while continuing to create great places to work.
Steven Boyd, our CEO said; “To deliver the best possible service to our clients, each part of our business needs excellent data, which is then integrated to provide us with insight not readily available to others. These contract awards take us another step along our journey to best-in-class, evidenced-based decision making.”
Peterborough Hub achieves practical completion
Quay House in Peterborough, our first new build hub, will be complete and ready for service by the end of January 2023. Hosting DEFRA and HM Passport Office, it is a seven storey building with a public-facing floor to support the Passport Office and Business Events Centre. When complete it will house over 1,000 civil servants. Sitting at the front of the Fletton Quays development, this new hub showcases our diverse capability across property and workplace experience.
Cat B phased completion
The internal fit out of Quay House was completed on 28 October. We are now in the final phase of the project as we complete external works and the Cat C phase to install IT infrastructure and furniture.
The view out of one of the meeting rooms.
A breakout area on the sixth floor.
Staff entrance area.
We continue working closely with our clients to deliver a great place to work and look forward to welcoming customers through our doors in the early part of next year.
Bristol, Temple Quay House refurbishment begins
Work started on site at our Bristol building, Temple Quay House, on 7 November 2022 with BAM Construction Ltd undertaking the major refurbishment.
The refurbished building will be completed in Q3 2024, offering a great place to work for 2,300 civil servants from 19 different government bodies.
Temple Quay House is only a few minutes walk from Bristol Temple Meads station. In line with the principles set out in the Government Workplace Design Guide, this refurbishment will provide a range of different work settings, including a Business Events Centre. It will improve the heating, ventilation and air conditioning across the building and provide interoperability through improved GovWifi, as well as address the maintenance backlog and a range of occupier concerns.
Exterior of Temple Quay House
The key feature of this project is that the refurbishment will be undertaken in three phases over the next 91 weeks, while the existing occupiers remain in temporary home zones around the building.
The first phase of the refurbishment will be the most intrusive with the installation of a new fire evacuation lift to enhance our inclusivity offering; and complete the connection to Bristol City Council’s District Heating Network significantly reducing our carbon footprint. Noise disruption will be managed by undertaking the most disruptive works out of business hours and using quieter building methods. To further support minimal disruption and maintain a safe and secure working environment, fire retarding and noise suppressing partitions will be installed around the BAM work areas and noise monitoring arrangements put in place in the temporary home zones.
Our Capital Projects, Workplace Services, Client Solutions and Property teams are working closely together to ensure that appropriate facilities, services and effective two-way communication are provided for the existing occupiers throughout the refurbishment.
Smarter Working Live Conference returns for 2023
We’re bringing together brilliant minds from across the UK’s public sector once again to celebrate smarter working. Our Smarter Working Live Conference, in partnership with GovNewsDirect, will bring the UK’s experts to your screens to discuss how smarter working practices have evolved into a core business need.
This free to attend, virtual event on 1 March 2023 will focus on three themes:
- Learning - what is the data telling us about how workplace experiences are evolving?
- Thought leadership - you’ll get to hear from and take part in discussions and activities that deal with smarter working hot topics
- Future - expert, data-backed predictions about how smarter working practices will continue to evolve and how we successfully embed it into our working lives
Be amongst the first to secure your virtual seat at Smarter Working Live 2023 by registering your interest with the team (Gmail users click here).
We have been leading the Civil Service transformation since 2018 by supporting government departments to implement smarter working practices. So far, we have supported over 20 departments to achieve Smarter Working maturity. This means these departments have provided demonstrable evidence of how their people and culture, leadership, technology and workspaces are supporting, advocating and role modelling smarter ways of working.
To find out more about how you can join the smarter working journey, contact our dedicated team at [email protected]
Smarter Working Live 2023 is supported by our Smarter Working Awards which recognises the significant achievements and commitment demonstrated by individuals, teams and organisations across the public sector to drive positive change towards smarter working.
Join the conversation on social media by following #SWL23