The Welsh government’s latest State of the Estate report, for 2023-24, published in May, said it “looks back on a year where our offices remained under occupied as staff continued to work remotely”. <\/p>\n
“This is being addressed by an ongoing increase in the amount of spaces now allocated to public sector tenants. <\/p>\n
“More of our spaces are being used as public sector hubs while Welsh government staff adopt a hybrid model of working.”<\/p>\n
It continues, “the need for staff to be dispersed across Wales constrains opportunities for further office closures, however options to ‘right size’ is actively considered through development of business cases, investment appraisals and consultation with staff and trade unions as opportunities, such as break clauses or lease terminations, arise”.<\/p>\n
It cites the example of the office at Grosvenor Road, Wrexham, which was vacated when its lease came to an end in January 2024, relocating staff into a smaller, single unit also in Wrexham. <\/p>\n
The report also said an empty office block at Picton Terrace, Carmarthen, was surplus to requirements and being marketed, and “uncertainty about long-term working patterns have been a factor in this office space remaining vacant”.<\/p>\n
The report added “as remote working practices become more embedded it is anticipated that the nature of the office estate will change further and more opportunities for efficiencies will arise”.<\/p>\n
Other public bodies given office space since the Covid pandemic include the Welsh language commissioner and the Food Standards Agency.<\/p>\n
Fran Heathcote, general secretary of the Public and Commercial Services Union, told the BBC: “The current blended working arrangements at Welsh government have been developed with unions through working in social partnership, and we have no reason to believe the current arrangements are not working. <\/p>\n
“At such a time they are up for review, this will be done via social partnership with the Welsh government and recognised trade unions.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Welsh government’s latest State of the Estate report, for 2023-24, published in May, said it “looks back…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":286270,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5010],"tags":[748,4884,16,15,1764],"class_list":{"0":"post-286269","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wales","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-great-britain","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-wales"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114904805267788749","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286269","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=286269"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286269\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/286270"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=286269"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=286269"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=286269"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}