How Rackline Can Assist
Our Clients

It is now hard to avoid the inevitability of public sector spending cuts. Both of the major political parties have outlined their plans for reducing spend in the public sector.

Whilst neither party has been explicit in where or how these changes will be implemented it is clear they are coming, possibly as soon as immediately after the next election.

With this eventuality looming, Rackline have turned their thoughts as to how we can help our public sector clients address making savings whilst creating benefits for their organisations at the same time.

Much of this strategy can be driven by the agenda set out by HM Treasury and implemented by OGC, an independent office set up by the Treasury to help the government deliver best value from its spending.

In particular the government has targets for what it calls ‘High Performing Property’. Much of this relates to rationalisation of existing government estate. Coming out of these targets is the ‘Office Floorspace Standard’ a standard set to achieve appropriate and productive buildings at an acceptable price to the tax payer.

The standard is driven by a discovery that on average government offices are occupied 25% less efficiently than in the private sector. A sixth of them are occupied at more than 24 square metres per person! The Standard looks for government estate to provide a maximum of 12 square metres per person and in the case of new or substantially refurbished buildings densities of 10 square metres are proposed.

Initially strategies of ‘hot desking’ and less cellular offices are proposed by the OGC, however, Rackline have shown that these initiatives will not be sufficient to reduce an average of over 20 sqm that currently exist, down to the target of 12sqm.

If the cultural initiatives as detailed above are followed in tandem with the implementation of a high density storage solution such as Racklines, the levels of efficiency proposed by the OGC can begin to be achieved.

Typically a high density solution from Rackline can reduce the square meterage occupied over conventional storage by 70%. Applying these levels of reduction to typical offices can assist dramatically in reaching targets of 12 sq metres or less. The total annual spend on central civil estate in the public sector is £6 Billion.

If the Standard is applied across the estate the total potential saving is £1.25 Billion! These numbers are material against the targets that the incumbent government will be looking to achieve, so a consideration of Rackline and its high density solutions becomes a real asset in the task of saving money in the public sector.