Britain’s Energy Coast Britain’s Energy Coast OVERVIEW DragonGate has a long relationship with BEC (formerly, Britain’s Energy Coast) through the work they did in designing a public service hub in West Cumbria. DragonGate was tasked with identifying how, in addition to supporting local public services, West Cumbria could support an innovation cluster that acted as…
Redditch Community Hub Redditch Community Hub OVERVIEW DragonGate won a competitive tender process to assist with preparing a full business case for a public service hub in Redditch Town Centre. In addition to being a key regeneration project the hub would enable services to transform and reduce property costs. EXERPTS DragonGate delivered this four-module project…
City of Wolverhampton Council City of Wolverhampton Council: Creating the Vision for Relocation OVERVIEW DragonGate has been working with West Midlands and the City of Wolverhampton Council for several years and through several governments and Civil Service relocation agendas. In 2020, we were commissioned to to support efforts to secure a Whitehall relocation to Wolverhampton.…
Tees Valley Combined Authority Tees Valley Combined Authority: Creating the Vision for Relocation OVERVIEW DragonGate have a long-term relationship with Tees Valley Combined Authority and were commissioned in 2019 to develop an initial vision for public sector relocation to the area. This vision played an important role in identifying the opportunities for public sector relocation…
The administration of the government estate can be traced back in history to the time of the Anglo Saxons. Throughout this history it has posed civil servants great challenges; with a renewed surge in activity and strategy, the risk today is that government fails to learn from these challenges and repeats the mistakes of the past.
In the teeth of determined civil service opposition, it was brave of the government to commit 750 top posts in the Treasury to Darlington and 500 in the Ministry of Housing and Local Government to Wolverhampton as part of the imminent Whitehall relocation programme and levelling-up agenda.
The Institute has produced a thought-provoking piece as Government prepares for a programme that will see 22,000 civil servants relocated to the English regions and devolved nations during the current decade. But there some important gaps in the paper with too much emphasis on the costs and too little on the very real savings and improvements that can be made, both in the short and the long term.
The BBC’s news today about the Leeds DWP office failing to enforce social distancing following an Health and Safety Executive inspection brought back many memories of Quarry House – a building which carries the rather unkind soubriquet “The Kremlin”.
For Boris Johnson’s shellshocked government, there has been little instructive from the worlds of ed and med in recent weeks.
Blame has flown and political heat applied to previously little known quango Ofqual and the much criticised Public Health England (PHE) before its demise and absorption into the National Institute for Health Protection. Before this, the secretary of state for health and chief strategic government advisers were, apparently, unaware that they had the power all along to direct and control PHE.
Serco was awarded a track and trace contract valued up to £400m, apparently without competition.
Actually, there was a competition – kind of. Serco competed for, and won a place on a government “framework” contract. In effect, it is a catalogue – enabling governments to call off goods and services, without the need for further competition. In this case, the contract was for call centre services, and awarded by the Crown Commercial Service.
