The office accommodation of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and its sponsored bodies

This report looks at the cost and utilization of the office accommodation occupied by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and 24 of its sponsored bodies.

The 25 organisations covered by this report spent some GBP 43 million in 2004-05.

The focus of the report is on cost efficiency, with consideration of two key indicators - the cost of space (rent, rates and operating costs such as cleaning and utilities); and the way that space is used (the number of square metres per member of staff), which combined, give the measure of cost per person.

The NAO sets out a number of recommendations: that all organizations should adopt the efficiency measurement as based on cost per unit of space, space per person and cost per person; that performance data in measuring efficiency should be shared across departments; further efficiency measures should be examined, including renegotiating rental payments; reducing operating costs; subletting space to others; and reducing demand for workstations. Also longer term policies should be taken into consideration such as: reorganizing existing offices into more space efficient layouts; exploring the scope for achieving savings through moving premises; achieving economies of scale.

Further to this, all organizations should have an accommodation strategy, and adopt a coordinated approach to property management.