Q41 Jim Sheridan: Were all the locations in central London?
Ms Aldred: We did look at locations elsewhere in London, including in docklands, which may have
fallen into the unsuitable category. I do know that at the time people felt that location outside the division bell area was not suitable.
Q42 Jim Sheridan: Why?
Ms Aldred: Because ministers would not want to be located outside the division bell area and the idea was to try to get from six buildings, as we were then, to one building.
Q43 Jim Sheridan: This building is to accommodate ministers.
Ms Aldred: Yes.
Q44 Jim Sheridan: Solely ministers.
Mr Gieve: And a few others.
Ms Aldred: And one or two others.
Q45 Jim Sheridan: Following on from the point the Chairman made earlier, given all the new technology, video conferences, etcetera, why do we need to be based in central London when the Home Office serves the whole of Britain?
Mr Gieve: We are not entirely based in London; in fact the majority of our staff are outside London, spread around the country in prisons, ports, major office developments in Liverpool, Sheffield and Leeds. Nonetheless, it is a good question: could we shift more people out of London? Would that offer value for money? That is what we are looking at at the moment. At the time we entered into these negotiations back in the mid 1990s, we did not examine relocation of a substantial amount of staff at that stage. We had done in the early 1990s and indeed we had been about to move the prison headquarters to Derby, but that was cancelled in 1993 because the then Home Secretary did not believe he could afford the upfront cost of moving. We had considered moving the Passport Service to York in 1996, but again the finances did not work out. That was the background against which we planned to keep the headquarters in London. That is what we are looking at again now.
Q46 Jim Sheridan: If I understood you correctly, you are looking at perhaps moving out of London in years to come and taking more staff out of London to the rest of the country. Is that correct?
Mr Gieve: Yes, we are looking at a number of possible options in the corrections area but also in other parts.
Q47 Jim Sheridan: Page 15, paragraph 1.28 is suggesting that in 26 years' time you will be able to move more people into Marsham Street.
Mr Gieve: I did not read it as saying that. The point there is about home working and remote working, hot-desking and so on, whether we can fit a greater gross number of staff in the single building on the assumption that only 3,500 are there at any one time. We do a bit of that at the moment, but that may expand.
Q48 Jim Sheridan: Do you understand where I am coming from? People from north of Watford have a perception that civil servants suffer a nose bleed if they go north of Watford.
Mr Gieve: We have many, many civil servants working north of Watford and they do not all have nose bleeds.
Q49 Jim Sheridan: May I take you to page 11, paragraph 1.8? Correct me if I am wrong. I have looked through this Report and it does quite rightly talk about staff, flexibility, Russian practices, etcetera, but I have still to find mention anywhere of improving services to the public and the customer. This paragraph says "Providing a better service to visitors and public by provision of fit for purpose fully serviced central conference and press facilities situated close to main entrance to enable good security with ease of access". They will be dancing in the streets of Inverness knowing that all that facility is there in London.
Mr Gieve: Most of our headquarters staff deliver service to the public by providing effective policy and programmes which issue in the front line. It is delivery that counts. The main benefit of this building-and my colleagues in the Treasury who have recently moved into their renovated building have been very encouraging on this-is having a modern space which is more flexible and leads to better team working and better results. The better results obviously should be apparent to the public. We do not have many services directly offered from the Home Office HQ, except for visitors and press and so on.
Q50 Jim Sheridan: I do not wish to be rude, but I do detect that there is a mental block there which suggests that you need to be located in central London for no other reason than to accommodate ministers. That is just a view.
Mr Gieve: I can see what you are saying.