Scottish Civil Estate: efficiency and sustainability report 2018 to 2019

2. Executive Summary

Scottish Ministers are required to lay before the Scottish Parliament this ninth annual report assessing progress in improving the efficiency and sustainability of the Scottish Civil estate.

Key performance indicators are gathered to reflect the size, use and energy efficiency of the offices which the core Scottish Government and its diverse executive agencies occupy, and where they control the building's plant and environment.

The estate being assessed is not static and the comparisons required by statute are difficult to compare due to the dynamics of changes in staff numbers, working practices and the number of bodies comprising the Scottish Government's executive agencies.

Since the inception of the series of reports in 2010-11 there has been a net reduction in area of 34,752 m2 with 15 fewer buildings retained on the civil estate as leases have ended, opportunities to co-locate with other publicly-funded bodies have been taken and modernisation of working practices has been rolled out.

Scottish Government has been taking forward a programme of smarter working across larger offices and working collaboratively with executive agencies and other public bodies. The resulting co-locations and investment in improved working environments for staff optimises the use of existing space and supporting modern technology. This programme has resulted in the area per workstation and area per full-time equivalent employee (FTE) reducing across the civil estate, a trend which has continued in the past year. This necessary investment in the estate has seen an overall rise in the total estate cost per FTE over the past two years.

Improvements in energy efficiency have been delivered across the civil estate with a range of measures implemented such as LED lighting and installation of photo-voltaic solar panels at the larger buildings. These improvements, among others, show a continuing trend of less energy being consumed per FTE.

This welcome trajectory is one of improving efficiency and sustainability across the civil estate as a whole. As commercial office uses in the widest sense develop further, opportunities to improve will continue to be realised. Scottish Government is continuing to deliver improvements across the central public sector estate using accommodation and property changes together with enabling technologies to implement better ways of working and delivering services.