Examination of Witnesses (Questions 100-119)
DEPARTMENT FOR
CHILDREN, SCHOOLS
AND FAMILIES,
OFFICE OF
GOVERNMENT COMMERCE
& HM TREASURY
14 JANUARY 2008
Q100 Mr Bacon: It does not say median,
it just says accommodation cost per person. Presumably you know
how many people this calculation is based on?
Mr Davis: Yes.
Q101 Mr Bacon: And there must be
a figure for the total cost. I would like to see the raw numbers
basically: the accommodation costs per person; the number of people;
and the total costs would be quite helpful.
Mr Davis: Yes, we can give you
that.
Q102 Mr Bacon: It can be quite deceptive
with someone like DCMS. We looked at the Football Licensing Association
last time we looked at property and they were the most expensive,
many hundreds of thousands of pounds, £180,000 per person,
but they only had six people. So if you were able to supply us
with that, it would be very helpful.
Mr Davis: Yes.
Q103 Mr Bacon: The second thing is
that in footnote three, it says the DCMS will reduce from £12,707
to £6,429. In the bar chart it is very clear that DCMS is
second behind the Treasury on about £11,000, is it not?
Mr Davis: Yes.
Q104 Mr Bacon: Yet it says will reduce
from £12,700. Which year was it £12,700 or is the bar
chart wrong?
Mr Davis: No, the bar chart is
not wrong. We will include in the note an explanation of that.
Q105 Mr Bacon: That would be very
helpful. If we could see some more numbers just generally, it
would be most helpful. I would like then to continue with Ms Tulett
from where Mr Mitchell left off. You mentioned Exchequer Partnership
and you said that the unitary charge is generally included. Going
back to this chart on page 16, how many people in the Treasury
are covered by this calculation of accommodation per person?
Ms Tulett: The accommodation per
person is for the total holdings of five buildings; so it is not
just the Horse Guards, it is not just the Treasury core, it is
the whole group. Within Horse Guards we have 1,595.
Q106 Mr Bacon: What is your annual
unitary charge at the moment?
Ms Tulett: It is about £16.5
million.
Q107 Mr Bacon: It has gone up that
much already has it? It was £14 million when we looked at
it, £14.37 million. It is now £16 million and what?
Ms Tulett: It is about £16.5
million at the moment.
Q108 Mr Bacon: Divided by how many
staff?
Ms Tulett: At the moment in that
building, 1,595.
Q109 Mr Bacon: Right. That comes
out at £10,344 per person. Does that sound about right to
you?
Ms Tulett: Yes, it does.
Q110 Mr Bacon: You mentioned that
you had saved £3 million in running costs. Who does that
benefit, Exchequer Partnership Limited or you?
Ms Tulett: That benefits us because
the two properties that we disposed of were nothing to do with
the Exchequer Partnership. There was the sale of Thistle Street
in Edinburgh, which also brought in £2.3 capital receipt,
and the disposal of Trevelyan House with the decant of OGC into
Horse Guards.
Q111 Mr Bacon: Presumably the scope
for saving money within 1 Horse Guards is pretty limited because
of the PFI—it is the contract you have—other than
putting more people in and saving money per head.
Ms Tulett: Putting more people
in is clearly the most efficient use of that building.
Q112 Mr Bacon: I am still reading
Michael Barber's book on the delivery unit and I was interested
to see that they went from a grotty room above the Red Lion Pub
across the road into the back of what I think of as the Treasury
building, but 1 Horse Guards. Presumably there is some space there
as the delivery unit does not exist anymore. Is that where you
went Mr Smith? Did you go into where the delivery unit had been?
Mr Smith: No, the PMDU has come
into Treasury.
Q113 Mr Bacon: Does the PM's Delivery
Unit (PMDU) still exist?
Mr Smith: Yes.
Q114 Mr Bacon: He says in his book
that his proposal was that it should be wound down.
Ms Tulett: It has been transferred.
Staff have transferred to the Treasury from the Cabinet Office,
being the PMDU. OGC actually occupy, alongside most of our corporate
services, the fourth floor of the Horse Guards building.
Q115 Mr Bacon: First of all on the
subject of the annual unitary charge, could you send us a summary
of what the costs have done since the contract started in terms
of per year and where you see them going?
Ms Tulett: I can do indeed.
Q116 Mr Bacon: Presumably you have
a projection for the 35 years of the contract do you?
Ms Tulett: We do.
Q117 Mr Bacon: If you could send
us that, that would be very helpful.[2]
What is your estimate from 1,595, if you got up to capacity, not
establishment but capacity of the building, what would the estimate
be of the number of people there then?
Ms Tulett: On a 1:1 ratio, about
1,725.
Q118 Mr Bacon: So only 130 more?
Ms Tulett: Yes. We would then
want to follow along the example Mr Thompson has demonstrated
of actually looking at the ratio of staff to desks.
Q119 Mr Bacon: Double deck or whatever.
Ms Tulett: Yes.
2 Ev 17-46 Back
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