WELCOME TO INFOCUS, June 23
Yvette Greener, Client Director
Over these past three months, we have continued to see many successes across our business. Our Workplace Services Transformation Programme continues at pace as we prepare to roll out our national service desk at the first three locations. We have also awarded our security contracts to two service providers across the four aggregated regions.
Our progress with implementing property technologies for GovPass and occupancy monitoring is generating valuable data pools to support strategic reporting and decision making. We are pleased to report more than 52,000 civil servants now have GovPass access at 31 locations, with 30 additional locations coming onboard throughout this year. And we are currently gathering occupancy data from more than 500,000m2 of government office space.
Manchester continues to gain attention with our new Government Hub at First Street recently winning three industry awards for deal of the year and lease of the year. We were also pleased to see the first concrete pour at the site in April, marking the beginning of the core foundation works.
And our collaboration with the Home Office to deliver a temporary office solution is supporting its recruitment activities in Stoke-on-Trent in preparation for its new Hub set to open in 2027.
I am also pleased to welcome three new members to our senior team: Nick Brown has joined as our Chief Financial Officer; Mandev Dass is our Chief Digital Officer and Kean Jones is our Chief Technology Officer, all further strengthening our team to enhance the services we design and deliver for you.
In this issue:
- Smarter working success: The evolution to business as usual
- Investing in technology to power our client-centric focus
- Workplace Services Transformation Programme continues at pace
- GovPass exceeds 52,000 passes and continues to grow
- Occupancy data gathering continues
- The GPA moves forward to complete new hub in Croydon
- Manchester First Street hub wins three awards!
- Our Manchester Hub gets its first concrete pour
- Stoke-on-Trent temporary solution at 2 Smithfield
- Case study: Regenerating Peterborough
- Rapid delivery to support public inquiries
- The GPA further strengthens its senior leadership team
Smarter working success: The evolution to business as usual
Smarter working was first recognised within the UK government in 2004. Since then it has evolved into a core business need and a driver for efficiency and cost savings. It allowed the Civil Service to react immediately to flexible working needs during the pandemic, and is helping to keep Britain working during the industrial strikes.
Smarter ways of working are also enabling a culture of flexibility, inclusivity and choice across the Civil Service.
We have been delivering the Government's Smarter Working Programme since 2018. The success of this programme has enabled the ethos, culture, processes and technology to become so greatly recognised that they are embedded into business-as-usual practices. And we are continuing to lead the Civil Service smarter working expertise across the Government's office estate.
Through the dedicated programme, 41 government departments were accessed on smarter working capabilities. Of those, 30 (73%) departments achieved 'Mature' status. This means these departments provided demonstrable evidence of how their people and culture, leadership, technology and workspaces are supporting, advocating and role modelling smarter ways of working.
Smarter Working Mature departments:
- BEIS
- Charity Commission
- CMA
- CPS
- DCMS
- DEFRA
- DfE
- DfT
- DHSC
- DIT
- DLUHC
- DWP
- Food Standards Agency
- Forestry Commission
- GLD
- HMRC
- Land Registry
- National Archives
- NS&I
- OAG
- OFGEM
- OFQUAL
- OFSTED
- OFWAT
- ORR
- Scotland Office
- Supreme Court
- UKEF
- UKSA
- Wales Office
Our evaluation of the effectiveness of the Smarter Working (SW) Programme has provided some key insights:
- Assessor benefits
- 95.5% of assessors felt that there had been a benefit to being involved in the programme
- 93.2% had learned new skills or knowledge
- 82% were able to transfer their knowledge to the benefit of their own smarter ways of working.
- Departmental benefits
- 96% of departmental leads reported that the SW Programme had been beneficial.
- Qualitative analysis revealed benefits as: developing cross governmental relationships, obtaining expert advice from the Business Partners (BPs), transitioning to new ways of working, keeping SW on the agenda and the programme being a key enabler of change.
- The SW Business Partner team
- 100% of respondents said they would recommend working with the BP team in future, 91.7% describing the BP support as 'good or very good' and 87.5% rating the quality of advice as 'good or very good'.
- SW products and networks
- 79.2% of respondents considered the smarter working products or resources valuable to implementing SW in their own departments
- 81% considered the GPA hosted networks valuable.
The findings show the programme has been effective in several key areas: successful programme delivery, improving the quality of smarter working across the Civil Service, enabling change and bringing together a smarter working community. The evaluation highlighted the importance of continued cross-departmental support via our recently launched Community of Practice.
Community of Practice
As we continue to lead the Civil Service in implementing smarter ways of working, our Community of Practice is a cornerstone of this service: a thriving community that has evolved throughout the SW Programme helping its members to share best practice, collaborate on challenges and learn from each other:
- Tools, advice and guidance
- Events
- Community activity, including an online community members collaborate, and a six-weekly smarter working practitioner group meeting
- Smarter working thought leadership
Join our Community of Practice today by contacting our team on
