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Departmental Buildings

Answer

DWP does not own any property. In 1998 and further in 2003, the Department outsourced its estate through a PFI Contract known as "PRIME" returning exchequer receipts of £250 million in 1998 and £100 million in 2003.

A—Office space owned by the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP)
	Square metres/£ million
Area
(i) Vacant office space (square metres)	0
(ii) Other occupied office space (square metres)	0
Estimated value
(i) Vacant office space (£ million)	n/a
(ii) Other occupied office space (£ million)	n/a
n/a = Not applicable

B—Office space rented by DWP
	Square metres/£ million
Area
(i) Vacant office space (square metres)	6,747
(ii) Other occupied office space (square metres)	1,529,589
Estimated value
(i) Vacant office space (£ million)	1.1
(ii) Other occupied office space (£ million)	405.8

Since the Department was formed, we have continued to make significant progress with our estate strategy. By the end of 2011, we expect to have reduced our estate by around 28 per cent. since the Department was formed, vacating 800 buildings and substantially improving the quality of most buildings that have been retained.As the business strategies involve the relocation of staff it is inevitable that this will not align perfectly with strategic property opportunities. Consequently there will be small, localised 'pockets' of temporarily vacant space remaining where return to our PFI supplier is not immediately financially viable or where there is no demand from other Government Departments. For DWP this vacant space represents less than 0.3 m per cent. of the overall annual cost of DWP office accommodation.

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

505 c684-5W; 310517

Session

2009-10

Subjects

Buildings Department for Work and Pensions

Contains statistics

Yes

Link

View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk