A discounted cash-flow model can be constructed and run for each shortlisted option for 25 years, discounted at the appropriate rate to produce a Net Present Cost (NPC) for each option. An affordability analysis can be undertaken, against the client’s budget if necessary. The results can be split by revenue (rent, increases at review, rates, service charges, utilities, maintenance and facilities management, insurance etc) and capital (up costs, fit-out, surrender costs, dilapidations, furniture, move costs, staff costs, redundancy etc).
Carter Jonas’s estate strategies help a wide variety of public-sector and third-sector clients to understand how their real estate can better support operational requirements and deliver savings.
Our property investment experts can help identify and deliver change, and we are adept at applying the five case model recommended by HM Treasury.
Strategic Property Advice Services
We have developed a model that evaluates the non-financial factors or qualitative elements of each option, using a weighting and scoring approach. This enables appropriate weighting to be awarded to the key requirements for best-in-class workspace for employees, volunteers and visitors. We can draft the criteria and their importance, and then work with the client – usually in a workshop – to confirm the criteria and agree the weightings. The criteria may include: accommodation availability, location, working environment, sustainability, risk, business continuity etc.
CBA is a simple way to bring the financial (NPC) and the non-financial (qualitative scores) together to calculate the cost per unit of benefit. The option with the lowest cost per unit of benefit therefore delivers the most benefits for the lowest cost, and represents the preferred option.
A further step is to identify the key risks, scored to show their likelihood and impact. They can then be analysed to identify possible options for mitigation and monitored during the instruction.
A summary of the options can also be compared against key metrics, such as:
• Square metres per staff member or full-time equivalent (FTE)
• Desk to staff ratio
• Running cost per square metre
• Running cost per staff member/FTE
We can then benchmark these metrics against other organisations that we have undertaken similar work for, and provide a performance analysis. The outcome of this approach is a concise document that captures the future estate requirement, and plots the route through implementation with a preferred option that meets both the cost and quality aspirations of the client. This work is often done in tandem with staff consultation, relocation advice, and architectural and space planning, all of which Carter Jonas, as a multi-disciplinary business, can provide.
- Care Quality Commission
- Food Standards Agency
- Arthritis Research UK
- Nursing and Midwifery Council
We can undertake feasibility studies and option appraisals and prepare business cases to help public-sector and not-for-profit organisations gain governance approval for the implementation phase of a strategy.
This approach enables our clients to identify the best option for them, representing best value for money. Typically this is in the context of relocating, but it can also be used to analyse options for the future use of a building, using the status quo as a benchmark comparator.
Although not mandatory for all clients, we use a methodology that’s in line with HM Treasury’s Green Book (the five case model) because it represents best practice. It is comprised of three different approaches: financial, qualitative and Cost Benefit Analysis (CBA).
Our Key Clients
Three career highlights:
Account lead for Buckinghamshire County Council estate management contract responsible for the overall client interface and including quality control aspects, job commissioning and KPI performance in addition to the direct delivery of many key projects including strategic sales, implementation of annual asset valuation programme, town centre regeneration schemes and other property initiatives.
Account director for Thames Valley Police between 1997 and 2012 responsible for property services delivery across Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire and Berkshire and including acquisitions and disposals, rating, landlord and tenant, asset valuations, strategic advice, telecommunications, building consultancy, development consultancy and work place strategy.
Property advisor to Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. Development advice including the sale of a 270 unit surplus residential site in Oxford. Strategic estate planning across the estate with objectives of enhancing clinical use provision as well as maximizing income through long term investment activities. Negotiation of numerous landlord and tenant and development situations across the Trust estate.
Three career highlights:
Significant involvement in and preparation of the Ministry of Defence ‘Footprint Strategy’ announced in the House of Commons, during a 2 year secondment to DIO.
A number of Central Government and Local Authority Green Book Business Cases leading to relocations, change programmes and adopting new ways of working.
Sale of Centrepoint Tower to Almacantar under the Targetfollow administration
Three career highlights:
• Fourteen years of strategic advice in advocating local and central government services, allowing savings and improved service delivery.
• Two nominations for occupier of the year awards on behalf of Local Authorities.
• Undertaking an efficiency review of every public owned asset within a UK County to understand strategic co-sharing opportunities and savings.
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