In September 2018, the PCC made the decision not to extend, beyond its 10-year term, the contract to provide services to Cleveland Police by SopraSteria.
Upon the return of these services in October 2020, there will be a need to accommodate circa 100 staff, who do not currently work from a building which is owned by the PCC.
The current estate does not, however, have sufficient capacity to accommodate these staff. Work has been ongoing over the last year to look at various options, with appraisals on a number of potential purchases.
In addition to the space needed to accommodate these staff, there is also a likely increase in space that will result from increases in staff to support the expected Uplift in Police Officers, which has been announced at national level. It would be expected that the proportional increase in Police Officers locally will also see a proportional increase in Police staff – initial indications are that these posts could total 60-80 FTEs for Cleveland
Police and are expected to be funded in line with the additional funding for additional Police Officers.
A market search and subsequent assessment identified that St Marks House had the potential to not only provide the space to accommodate the return of SopraSteria staff but also provide much needed flexibility of space to meet future growth and/or provide higher quality accommodation for existing operational teams.
The market for a property of the size required, for the known and expected needs of the organisation, is however limited and some of the properties that were looked at and considered weren’t openly marketed as being for sale.
Around 10 properties were considered throughout the search. They were considered in terms of whether they met the needs of the organisation in terms of floor space, location, parking, amenities for staff and whether the purchase and running costs would be affordable to the PCC and provide value for money.
- The proposal to purchase St Marks House has the following benefits:
- The scope to accommodate around 180 desks across the 1st and 2nd floors of this building.
- Scope to use the ground floor of the building for a number of potential options, depending on the future estates strategy of the organisation.
- The building is located only a very short distance (around 200yds) from the building that the SopraSteria staff currently work from and therefore it will have no additional costs for all parties to travel to work.
- There is parking on site but also available in the surrounding areas where many of the transferring staff will already park.
In terms of Value for money, the agreed purchase price for the building will be £800k excluding VAT, given that the building is around 16,000 square feet this equates to £50 per square foot.
In assessing whether this delivers value for money it has been compared against other buildings looked at as part of this process and also compared against 7 known sales that have taken place over the last few years within the area, of similar sized buildings.
These 7 sales were used by a professional valuer for comparison purposes in valuing all of the buildings owned by the PCC as at the 31st March 2019. At £50, the purchase of this building, on a per-square foot basis, represents better value than all of these other similar properties.
Decision drf188054. Proposal to buy property for staff (application, 185kB)