Property: government adopts a professional approach

Among its objectives of saving money the government hopes to drastically reduce the cost of running its estate. But as well as talking the talk it has to walk the walk and a new campaign has been launched to ensure that Whitehall departments have all the relevant skills in place. The launch, under the auspices of the Office of Government Commerce, an independent office of the Treasury, also helps to clarify the role of the "head of the asset management profession", a newly created position to which Vice Admiral Tim Laurence was appointed last summer. Laurence launched the initiative this week explaining that its aim is to identify and build the skills needed to support the delivery of the government's high performing property strategy. That in its turn aims to reduce the annual running costs of the government's £30bn estate by up to £1.3bn before 2013. The OGC says that the approach mirrors methods it adopted to build the government's procurement programme and project management professions. As well as publishing best practice guidance and developing a competency framework the campaign will establish a professional community within government. Laurence commented that a key objective of the new profession is to build a sense of community. He added that the "pan-government" campaign will "help develop our identity and our role in managing government's property assets to meet business objectives." A census is being conducted across the civil service to establish definitions for the profession and support the recruitment of professional membership in order to encourage membership of this community. The launch also included an open invitation to "public sector individuals" registering an interest in joining the government's property asset management profession to contact the OGC service desk. As part of the campaign the OGC simultaneously published guidance on the operation of the Property Asset Management Capability Assessment Model (PAMCAM). This is described as a self-assessment tool that will highlight shortfalls in skills and capabilities. The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) is working with OGC to develop best practice standards, guidance, training and qualifications.