£405k set aside for 'OneGov' office study

Thursday 18 April 2019

£405,000 has been set aside by the government to be spent on reviews paving the way for a new permanent HQ to house all staff.

In line with Chief Executive Charlie Parker’s plans to reduce “silo” working by bringing government workers under one roof, around 500 civil servants finalised a £7million move from Cyril Le Marquand House to Broad Street last month, while La Motte Street was converted into ‘Customer and Local Services’, incorporating workers from Social Security, Planning, the Passport Office and HR staff.

However, these only remain a “temporary” solution, with the ambition still being to move to a new premises that can house all government workers within five years, when the Broad Street lease is up.

There had been moves to use a site earmarked for social housing, but these were slapped down by States Members following a debate described as a clash of "hearts and minds".

Pictured: An early design of the proposed government headquarters development at Ann Court.

The Treasury Minister, Deputy Susie Pinel, has now approved expenditure of £405,350 to be spent on reviewing the options now available to the government. The funding will cover the eventual development of an 'Outline Business Case' (OBC) and a 'Full Business Case' (FBC) to follow in due course.

A report outlining the expenditure decision explained: "'One island, one community, one government and one future' is the key concept underpinning the One Government initiative and the future vision for Jersey. To deliver this, the Government of Jersey is currently undertaking a number of programmes – a finance transformation programme, an efficiency programme and the development of a detailed estates strategy.

"A critical part of the estates strategy is the consideration of the office solution that will be needed to support the One Government initiative. To fully investigate the options available to the Government of Jersey in relation to its office solution, a detailed OBC will be developed in line with the HMT Five Case Model. As the scheme develops over the course of 2019, a FBC will then be produced based on further design and site identification work."

Those plans will likely involve input from Plan RB consultants, who have a one-year contract with the government to work on the 'OneGov' estate strategy, which has so far come at a cost of £103,725 including expenses.

Pictured: The Chief Executive has said that he would like any new HQ to be based in an area of town in need of regeneration.

Since Ann Court was ruled out as an option, there has been much speculation about the potential site of a new headquarters.

Asked his preferred site option by Express earlier this year, Chief Executive Charlie Parker, who is leading the 'OneGov' initiative, commented: “I’ve given my advice to the Council of Ministers. I’m very clear: the States building should be in St. Helier, it should be a building which reduces a lot of our estates offer, so that we can save money, concentrate people in one place, we can get better communication and integration and we start to create the basis for a better customer-facing public service.”

This latest development comes as the prison has just secured permission for a £8.3million upgrade, which includes "satellite offices" for government employees working in the West of the island.

Part of a wider strategy to provide a number of out-of-town workstations across the island, these work spaces are intended to help create a more “agile, mobile workforce”.