The Budget Statement 2003 set out a major new programme of public service decentralisation involving the relocation of 10,300 civil and public service jobs to 53 centres in 25 counties. Further announcements since then increased the scope of the programme to over 10,500 jobs in more than 56 locations.
My office has been tasked with procurement of development sites in the designated locations and the procurement of accommodation solutions to the office and facility requirements of the Departments and agencies involved.
The decentralisation implementation group recommended a public private partnership approach, where appropriate, to the procurement of office accommodation. To this end my office has been developing a comprehensive risk-adjusted costing of project elements to measure the value for money of future PPP bids. It is possible that the scale and location profile of some decentralisation projects would not fit within a PPP-procured model. Accordingly, the cost profile of such projects may vary from the standard model.
It is anticipated that in the vast majority of cases the accommodation facilities will be provided by the construction of new office buildings and cost estimation can be approached on that basis. However, in advance of actual market testing of any procurement methodology, it is possible at this time only to assign the most general measurements of cost to such a large-scale and diverse programme.
It is estimated that approximately 210,000 sq. m. or 2.26 million sq. ft. of office space will be required to accommodate the total numbers included in the programme. Current industry cost norms in respect of commercial offices indicate an average build cost to fit-out standard in the range of €1,450 to €2,000 per sq. m. Such figures exclude VAT, professional fees and inflation.
In addition, the cost of equipping the accommodation to standard office equipment levels could be estimated at circa €4,000 per person. This would exclude the cost of information and communications technology and specialised equipment requirements. Such general measurements of cost do not include site procurement costs, specialised facility and equipment requirements and other variables which would arise from the spread of possible procurement methodologies.
In addition, general cost indicators of this type show a snapshot in time. The chairman of the decentralisation implementation group laid out a sequencing approach to members of the Joint Committee on Finance and the Public Service on 6 October.
Additional information not given on the floor of the House.
The group's views on sequencing and timing are to be submitted to the Cabinet sub-committee on decentralisation for its consideration. The outcome of these deliberations will clearly have an impact on how we can more closely assess programme costs going forward.
It is axiomatic that a firmer scale of costs for the decentralisation programme will only emerge on foot of actual cost proposals being received from the market. Nevertheless we can clearly anticipate that, generally speaking, the cost of providing accommodation infrastructure in provincial locations compared with central Dublin locations should yield considerable cost savings to the State over time in terms of site costs, capital build costs and indeed maintenance costs.