What do we do after we have picked the fruit?

Back from another property asset management conference where the key-note speakers having highlighted the size of the cuts the public sector are facing, offered the assembled attendees the solution of selling/not renewing leases for underutilised properties; considering flexible working, reviewing office use generally and selling/not renewing leases for the freed-up space. At question time one attendee, hardly disguising his frustration, asked, and I paraphrase here, “we have picked all the low hanging fruit already but we still have to achieve more ‘efficiencies’. What do we do now?” The speaker, who happened to be a civil servant and fan of Yes Minister’s Sir Humphrey Appleby GCB, KBE, MVO, MA (Oxon), responded accordingly.

Before going to the conference I was doing some work on a client’s data where they had implemented our modelling software based and the single integrated property model. I calculated the efficiencies from integrating the data and consequently the required work, delivered ‘efficiencies’ of some 6% without comprising the quantity or quality of the work delivered. In addition further ‘efficiencies’ can be realised by using the outputs from the modelling to facilitate better planning and programming. These are achieved by introducing more effective procurement methods such as longer term framework agreements that allow the supplier to programme the work and plan resources more effectively. There are plenty of apocryphal accounts as to the existence of the ‘efficiencies’ that could be achieved by introducing more effective procurement methods but little hard evidence as to the scale of them. I was, therefore, interested to learn at another conference that in Hamilton, Canada the local authority had implemented strategic asset management together with longer term framework agreements and the latter had actually achieved 5% to 7% savings. If we put these two together we achieve an average saving of some 12%. Hopefully that is more useful than a Sir Humphrey solution.