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Whitehall in property overspend
INEFFICIENT government departments are overspending heavily on office space, a report from the Taxpayers’ Alliance (TPA) claimed today, wasting hundreds of millions of pounds.
The Treasury spent £5,324 on property per full-time equivalent worker (FTE), compared to just £1,046 per FTE at Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC), the TPA said, calculating that if all departments improved to HMRC’s standard, the government could save £111.8m.
Though they admitted some of this cost was from high market rents, they said a large part was down to wide variations in office space – some departmental staff enjoyed five times as much space as others.