The government is eyeing NZ$388 million in rent and cost savings for the public service over the next 20 years as it strives to reduce its office space footprint in Wellington.
State Services Minister Jonathan Coleman said a new public service property strategy would likely reduce that footprint by the equivalent of three Reserve Bank buildings.
Cabinet approved the start of a centralised negotiation for future public service office space in the capital with accommodation leases due to expire for five large government agencies, Coleman said.
The leases due to expire included the Ministries of Social Development, Health, Education and Business Innovation and Employment, and the Crown Law Office.
The Property Management Centre of Expertise based within the Ministry of Social Development had been delegated to lead the negotiation for the accommodation needs.
“This is an example of the Better Public Services Functional Leadership initiative adopted this year. A centralised and co-ordinated approach, instead of each Ministry negotiating its own property space, is a sensible approach,” Coleman said.
The Property Management Centre of Expertise was mandated to negotiate the future leases and also work with agencies on co-location and sharing facilities.
“It will be a big step in mitigating the rapidly rising property costs the Public Service faces,” Coleman said.
A business case presented to Cabinet indicated a reduction of the office footprint in Wellington of 30% would save NZ$338 million over 20 years, which was a 20% reduction in cost compared with the status quo baseline.
“An excellent example of what can be achieved is the State Services Commission. It moved into a different building saving thousands in annual rent, achieved efficiency by sharing back office functions with other agencies, and provided a more pleasant modern work environment for staff," Coleman said.
“The Property Management Centre of Expertise leadership ends the situation where different government agencies effectively bid against each other for office space driving up the cost to the taxpayer,” he said.
The centre would aim to bring a Ministry into a single building or in a cluster with similar agencies, ensure work environments were safe and comfortable, and offer better furniture and information and communications technology solutions. It would also achieve savings from co-ordinated purchase of property related services such as maintenance and cleaning.
"Cabinet has approved the start of commercial negotiations and a final proposal on Wellington’s public sector office space will be put before Ministers for approval early next year," Coleman said.
2 Comments
Hugh - Politicians and Bureaucrats are the slowest learners and pretty stupid when it comes
to taking action. The longer they are in their roles the worse they all become as they end up too far removed from the reality of everyday business and life. There is an enormous lack of skill and expertise and that is why "elementary" issues of basic risk managment are absent. Those bureaucrats running their created empires have not succeeded in their own private business first so they don't have the skills, resilience, drive and determination necessary for delivering the goods. Private enterprise is motivated by efficiency and profit so they can stay in business but Pollies and Bureaucrats are motivated by staying in a a job so inefficiency and growth of costs becomes imperative for them to maintain their lifestyle.
Labour and the Greens have certainly left a plethora of issues entrenched within our system and the problems are so enormous that it will take years to rectify as the system is far too large. What NZ needs is a hit squad of competent private business owners who go right through every area of Government, Agencies and legislation and have a clean up of all the dead wood and get the whole system functioning efficiently.
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