Estates Transformation – BCU Building Refurbishment

This paper proposes the investment of £124.5m to refurbish 15 buildings which have had no significant investment in the last 20 years, and which are known to be needed to be retained to support the BCU model.

The refurbishment will ensure that the buildings are bought into good repair, operational requirements are incorporated and space is maximised to align with the policy on smarter working, providing additional capacity that is business critical.

Many of these buildings have seen no significant investment in the last 20 years and as a result have become tired and run down. New investment will focus on substantially upgrading welfare facilities for officers (showers, toilets, tea facilities, lockers) as well as creating modern open working environments that will foster a greater collaborative working environment that will substantially improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the police service.

Through this investment, police buildings will not only be improved but will also be utilised more intensively enabling more officers to work out of the same building. This will support both an increased number of officers and enable less efficient buildings to be sold. This will raise capital that will be reinvested back into the MPS and will reduce the overall running costs of the estate allowing annual costs to be reinvested into police officers.

The Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime is recommended to:

1. Approve expenditure of £124.5m to deliver Phase One of the BCU refurbishments.

2. Note that the capital programme will be updated accordingly as part of the ongoing review of the estates strategy, with amendments incorporated into the final budget submission due to be submitted to MOPAC in February.

3. Approve the award of construction contracts for refurbishment works to 15 BCU premises to be undertaken by MOPAC approved Framework Contractors

4. Note that each contract is to be entered into as a deed under the authority of the MOPAC Chief Executive Officer.

5. Note that this business case relates to 15 of the 27 sites included in the Tranche One and Two Outline Business Cases, PCD290 and PCD337.

1. Introduction and background

1.1. Investment in retained buildings is part of the “investment in the tools police officers need to do their job” and to create a modern working environment for public and staff are commitments in the Police and Crime Plan 2017. Having carried out initial feasibility and concept design work followed up by detailed design this paper requests the approval of £124.5m to deliver the phase 1 works. The cost is funded from within the approved existing capital programme.

2. Issues for consideration

2.1. There remains uncertainty as to the allocation from Government of additional officers to the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) and their funding from the 20,000 national police officer uplift, and subsequently the roles which additional officers will undertake. The investment proposed in this paper is necessary to upgrade these buildings which are part of the “to-be-retained” estate. The phase 2 works to refurbish a potential further 11 buildings will commence once the impact of the police uplift on the estate is better understood.

2.2. The refurbishment of the 15 BCU Command buildings will ensure that the buildings are bought into good repair, operational requirements are incorporated and space is maximised to align with the policy on smarter working, providing additional capacity that is business critical.

2.3. Many of these buildings have seen no significant investment in the last 20 years and as a result have become tired and run down. New investment will focus on substantially upgrading welfare facilities for officers (showers, toilets, tea facilities, lockers) as well as creating modern open working environments that will foster a greater collaborative working environment that will substantially improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the police service.

2.4. Through this investment, police buildings will not only be improved but will also be utilised more intensively enabling more officers to work out of the same building. This will support both an increased number of officers and enable less efficient buildings to be sold. This will raise capital that will be reinvested back into the MPS and will reduce the overall running costs of the estate allowing annual costs to be reinvested into police officers.

3. Financial Comments

3.1. The estimated cost of the works to refurbish these buildings is £124.5m. The funding is within the current approved affordable capital plan and following re-profiling is included in the draft capital programme being submitted for approval as part of the Budget process. Approval to this investment ahead of the final approval of the budget is sought in order to be able to progress these business critical works and accept submitted tenders prior to their expiry.

3.2. This approval and the subsequent further investment in phase 2 is anticipated to enable the disposal of sites releasing capital receipts to contribute towards the overall capital receipts target of £477m and contributing to the £54m property revenue savings –equivalent to the cost of 1,000 police officers.

4. Legal Comments

4.1. Paragraph 4.7 of the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime (MOPAC) Scheme of Delegation and Consent provides the Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime (DMPC) has delegated authority for the approval of MOPAC expenditure, income and funding of annual revenue budgets and capital programme.

4.2. Paragraph 4.13 of the MOPAC Scheme of Delegation and Consent provides the Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime (DMPC) has delegated authority to approve the procurement strategy for all requests to go out to tender for contracts valued at £500,000 or above.

4.3. Paragraph 5.22 provides the Chief Executive Officer of MOPAC has delegated authority to sign and to affix the common seal of MOPAC once they have been properly approved, for all contracts, agreements or transactions that are £5,000,000 or above in value over the life of the Contract (in money or money’s worth).

4.4. Paragraph 7.23 provides the Director of Strategic Procurement has consent to approve the award of all contracts, with the exception of those called in through the agreed call in procedure.

4.5. The Directorate of Legal Services has contributed to, and supported, this request for a decision.

5. Commercial Issues

5.1. The consultancy and construction work involved in this approval has been sourced from the MOPAC approved MPS Construction Professional Services Framework and the MOPAC approved MPS Minor & Intermediate Building Works Framework. This project will be managed under the same systems and processes that were used for the refurbishment of Charing Cross which was delivered ahead of schedule and under budget.

6. GDPR and Data Privacy

6.1. The proposal does not use personally identifiable data of members of the public, so there are no GDPR issues to be considered

7. Equality Comments

7.1. An over-arching equality impact assessment (EIA) screening study has been carried out to identify opportunities for improving buildings to support equality objectives. The planned refurbishments have been designed to ensure that they do not disadvantage any groups with protected characteristics under the Equality Act 2010.

8. Background/supporting papers

8.1. MPS paper Appendix 1