Government Property Strategy – One year on

Wednesday 6th September 2023

Etc. Venues, 11 Portland Street, Manchester, M1 3HU

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Event Information

Wednesday 6th September 2023, 11 Portland Street, Manchester, M1 3HU

We are delighted to announce that the most senior civil servants working in public sector property will converge on Manchester to discuss and debate Government’s Property Strategy, one year on from it’s launch. This conference will see the authors of the strategy and leaders in Government Property – including representatives from Government departments, the NHS, and Local Government – come together to explore the main themes and discuss the future of the profession.

Delegate attendance is completely free of charge for senior public servants, thus removing a significant cost barrier and facilitating a renewal or a creation of those vitally important networks with their peers and with a range of knowledgeable private sector advisors and practitioners.

A plenary session will set the scene for the day, then the conference continues with sessions going into more detail on the strategy and how the wider public sector can respond to the challenges and opportunities. Sessions will be led by a mix of public and private sector presenters and will encourage interactivity.

Throughout the day there will also be chances to network with your peers within the exhibition area and sample the excellent catering that Etc venues provide.

Delegate places are free of charge for all public sector property professionals employed within the UK public sector*. Places will be allocated on a ‘first come, first served’ basis and must be booked in advance. Don’t miss out on your place

*Terms & Conditions apply as detailed on booking

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Conference Agenda

Wednesday 6th September 2023, 11 Portland Street, Manchester, M1 3HU

0930 – 1100 Plenary Session

Alex Burghart MP, Parliamentary Secretary for the Cabinet Office

Mark Chivers, Government Chief Property Officer
Recap of the missions in Government Property Strategy; Key achievements; Summary of next steps and immediate priorities for 2024

Paul Mustow, Director, Property Delivery and Transformation, OGP/Cabinet Office
How the profession is transforming; skills; programmes to support estate transformation

Joanna Averley, Chief Planner, Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities

Andy Mills, Sector Director – Central Government, Equans
Partnering for mutual benefit through collaboration and innovation

The session ends with a chance for delegates to take part in Q&A with the speakers.

Following a 30min refreshment and networking break the day continues with focused work sessions:

1130- 1200

1 Left of bang or right of bang? Risk, adaptation, and resilience for public sector property
“Getting ‘left of bang’ means getting ahead of the threat, understanding it, and taking the appropriate action… but getting left of bang is difficult, especially in a noisy and unpredictable world. Getting left of bang is also risky – because it involves thinking about things in unconventional ways and taking atypical actions. In this session, Karl analyses the landscape, reconsiders how we think about risk, adaption, and resilience, and then asks whether public sector property is currently trending left or right of bang.

Karl Limbert, Director of Strategy for Equans UK

1210 – 1240

2A Hybrid and Hubs: How the public sector is unlocking potential with hybrid working
Join central and local government colleagues for an interactive panel discussion exploring how hybrid woking and Government Hubs are delivering real change to public sector workplaces.

We will cover the challenges, techniques, technologies and real-life experiences that were used to manage the new world of hybrid working in the public sector. We will discuss the changes in attitude towards working, the workspace supply and the ever-changing demand from staff and management.

Host: Kieron Murphy, Director of Workplace Hubs, Matrix Booking
Keith Finnigan, Head of FM, Crown Commercial Service
Catherine Lane, Head of Estates, Department for Education
Laura Murphy, Head of People Resource and Strategy, Ministry of Justice
Helen Thompson, Estates Partnering – Property & Assets, HMRC Estates & Locations Programme

1210 – 1240

2B Health, wellbeing and the Social Value Model
There is a growing need to support mental health in the workplace. We will discuss Theme 5 of the Social Value Model (Wellbeing) and the actions both public and private sector are taking to support health and wellbeing to make a genuine and longer term positive impact on our people.

The panel will cover the perspectives of the private sector, an SME, a human-centric design lead and a government department.

Hannah Evans, Director and Head of Central Government, Faithful+Gould
Stephanie Walters, Regional Director, Faithful+Gould
Caroline Paradise, Head of Design Research, Atkins
Ellie Jenkins, Partner, Akerlof
Government representative tbc

One hour lunch and networking break

1340 – 1410

3A The Homes England Strategic Plan
Robert will provide an exclusive insight into the agency’s new 5-year Strategic Plan. Robert, who will be joined by property experts from the housing body, will also provide fascinating insights into community regeneration through case studies of new schemes from across the country.

Robert Stone, Technical Director, Homes England
Ken Glendinning, National Director for Acquisitions and Partnering, Homes England

1340 – 1410

3B Health, safety and wellbeing
Jonathan will introduce the new Health and Safety Profession. This session will explore what the new Profession will focus on and achieve in the coming year, as well as discuss the most important aspects of health, safety, and wellbeing for the Civil Service.

Jonathan Russell, Chief Executive, Valuation Office Agency
Lynne Main, Head of Safety and Health at Work, Defra
Jay Sutherland-Pownall, Head of Health and Safety, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office

1420 – 1450

4A Neighbourhood Asset Reviews: harnessing the OPE approach to deliver Smaller, Better, Greener
How can we go from ‘everything, everywhere, all at once’, to ‘smaller, better, greener’? Sarah will be discussing how an OPE approach to place based estates planning can help to achieve just that, by rolling out a Neighbourhood Asset Review (NAR) programme.

A NAR helps to enable the place-based integration of public sector services. It appraises assets in context to local community need and in line with the ambitions of partner organisations whilst identifying opportunities to generate savings and release land.

We will showcase some case study examples of what’s been achieved so far and how we measure against the ambitions of the Government Property Strategy . Sarah will be joined by a representative who is directly involved in the case studies, giving a voice to their real experiences and lessons learned.

Sarah Butler, Divisional Director, AA Projects

1420 – 1450

4B Introducing: your new Government Head of the Property Profession

Lynda Rawsthorne, Government Head of the Property Profession

30min refreshment and networking break

1520 – 1600

Panel debate and Q&A: Government Property in 2030: what will the public estate look like at the end of the decade?

Exploring Government Hubs, Places for Growth, Plan for London and other major, long term transformational programmes. Ending with delegates’ opportunity to ask questions.

Chair: Mark Chivers, Government Chief Property Officer

Ravi Chand CBE, SRO: Places for Growth, Cabinet Office

Robin Dobson, Group Property Director, Network Rail

Lara Newman, Chief Executive, LocatED

Lynda Rawsthorne, Government Head of Property Profession, Cabinet Office

Chair’s closing remarks

Please note agenda will be updated regularly, speakers, subject matter and timings may be subject to change

Plenary Speakers

Wednesday 6th September 2022, 11 Portland Street, Manchester, M1 3HU

Alex Burghart MP, Parliamentary Secretary for the Cabinet Office

Alex Burghart was appointed as Parliamentary Secretary for the Cabinet Office on 27 October 2022.

He was previously Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for the Department for Work and Pensions from 20 September 2022 to 27 October 2022, and Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Department for Education from 16 September 2021 to 6 July 2022.

Mark Chivers, Government Chief Property Officer, Cabinet Office

Mark joined the Cabinet Office as Government Chief Property Officer in January 2022.

Mark is responsible for providing senior, strategic leadership for the whole cross-government property function. He works with a wide range of senior stakeholders within government and in the wider public sector promoting the intelligent use of property to deliver better public services at lower cost to the taxpayer.

Mark provides strategic leadership for the Government Property Function, and holds senior leaders accountable to the Government Functional Standard. He leads on major change programmes, supporting the delivery of better and more integrated public services, overseeing – among others – the Places for Growth programme and supporting the Levelling Up agenda.

Mark has 20 years’ experience at Board level in both the private and public sectors, most recently as Director of Estates Engineering and Energy at Boots UK, but has led teams across Property, Marketing, Procurement, Operations and Transformation in Walgreens Boots Alliance businesses.

Joanna Averley, Chief Planner, Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities

Joanna Averley took up the role of Chief Planner at MHCLG in September 2020. She is a town planner with 30 years’ experience working across government, major projects and with local authorities. She has been involved in all aspect of planning research, policy, practice and project delivery. Prior to this role she was at HS2 where she led on how the railway interfaces with its context with plan making and consenting processes. Until taking up the role of Chief Planner she was a London Mayor’s Design Advocate and Chair of the London Borough of Wandsworth’s Design Review Panel.

Joanna has worked on major regeneration and masterplanning projects from Manchester City Centre to the London Olympics. Joanna has held a number of senior roles as Senior Manager for Growth and Development for Crossrail 2 at TfL, Deputy CEO and Director of Design and Planning Advice of CABE, CEO of Centre for Cities, CEO of LandAid and Director of Design for the Olympic Delivery Authority. Joanna has held a number of non-executive roles including Trustee of MOLA (Museum of London Archaeology).

Andy Mills, Sector Director – Central Government, Equans

Andy has been Sector Director for Central Government at Equans since March 2023. He has 32 years’ experience with Central Government, with over 20 in the Government Property Profession. As an established Property Leader, he worked closely with the Office of Government Property, such as Chairing Central Government’s FM Taskforce in 2021/2022.

Andy was the Chief Property Officer for the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) up to January 2023, leading property services for the MoJ and the Home Office across a £8bn complex operational property portfolio (c2000 properties), with a diverse customer base. He specialised in Commercial, Facilities Management, Project Delivery (including capital project delivery), Estate Management and Sustainability.

In his current role, Andy uses his experience and understanding of the complexities and challenges of managing Central Government property (and associated relationships) to prioritise and continually develop Equans partnerships across Central Government, ensuring that we understand and deliver to departmental priorities (such as Net Zero) and put end users at the heart of our service delivery.

Paul Mustow, Director for Property Delivery and Transformation, Cabinet Office

Paul Mustow is an experienced leader and proven engineering and management professional with extensive experience in project and programme delivery in both private sector consultancy and public sector client roles. He is skilled in and passionate about leading multi-disciplinary teams and partnerships across diverse organisations; delivering capital programmes focussed on construction, infrastructure and property; managing organisational change; and translating policy into strategic direction.

Paul joined the Office of Government Property in January 2023 and is the Director for Property Delivery and Transformation, overseeing a range of programmes and driving the transformation of the government estate.

Previously Paul was a Divisional Director at the DfE for 6 years, and was Programme Director for the multi-billion pound Free Schools capital programme. Prior to that Paul worked at the Environment Agency for 16 years which included various key roles including head of the Flood Forecasting Centre, and head of the National Capital Management Service.

Paul is a Chartered Civil Engineer, a Government major project reviewer and a graduate of the Major Projects Leadership Academy.

Session and Panel Speakers

Wednesday 6th September, 11 Portland Street, Manchester, M1 3HU

Sarah Butler

Divisional Director

AA Projects

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Sarah is the Local and Central Government Sector Lead at AA Projects and forms part of their Strategic Management Consultancy Division. She specializes in strategic estates planning which includes the development of property estates strategies and place-based neighbourhood asset reviews. Most recently, Sarah has been working alongside UK Parliament as the business case lead for the risk reduction programme at the Palace of Westminster. This is in advance of the major Renewal & Restoration Programme.

Ravi Chand CBE

SRO, Places for Growth

Cabinet Office

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Ravi is the Programme Director at Places for Growth.

Prior to this, he was Chief People Officer at the Department for International Development (DfID). He had responsibility for People, Operations, IT and systems, Estates and change. DfID operates in 32 countries.

He chaired the Civil Service Attract and Retain design authority overseeing the implementation of Success Profiles (moving away from competency only selection), CS Recruitment Web pages and Recruitment Platform for Government with a new ATS.

Previously he was the HR Director at HM Revenue and Customs with responsibility for Workforce Management of its 69,000 staff. He led the work on reforming the workforce to deliver the departments’ blueprint ambitions for the future. This included the people transformation activity from closing 170 offices and creating 13 large regional hubs and 5 specialist sites across the UK.

Robin Dobson

Group Property Director

Network Rail

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Robin Dobson joined Network Rail in March 2022 from Hammerson Plc – a major British property development and investment company. Robin’s heads up the Network Rail property business and his key focus is on driving growth through the national commercial estate and bringing forward development opportunities with key partners such as TfL and Homes England in support of the Government’s levelling up agenda.

Robin has a proven track record of delivering strong growth across regeneration projects and has significant experience across all real estate asset classes in the UK and Europe.

Whilst at Hammerson PLC, his achievements included the creation of a £3bn mixed use platform of urban estates across six UK cities, including London and Dublin, comprising 6,000 private rented units, and 2.5m sq ft of workspace, hospitality, cultural and education buildings. Through this experience he has developed strong political, local authority and joint venture relationships across most UK cities which is hugely beneficial in his role in unlocking value across the Network Rail estate.
In his spare time, Robin is a keen sailor, skier and has three girls.

Hannah Evans

Director and Central Government Lead

Faithful+Gould

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Hannah Evans is an engaging and client orientated strategic leader who, for the last 16 years of her career, has focused her work to delivering value to the public purse within the Central Government sector.

Having worked with a variety of ministerial departments and Government agencies, Hannah has grown her network and excels in collaborating with the wider delivery team and stakeholders to ensure projects are delivered on time, in budget and against priority outcomes such MMC and Net Zero.

Hannah co-created Faithful+Gould’s Construction Playbook Compliance Tool and contributes to key industry groups including the Construction Leadership Council’s Next Generation Delivery workstream.

Hannah is a strong advocate for Health and Wellbeing, most recently arranging a teambuilding and wellbeing day for her sector team. Hannah is undertaking the Chilterns Challenge in September 2023 raising funds for mental health charity Mind.

Ken Glendinning

National Director for Acquisitions and Partnering

Homes England

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Ken Glendinning is the National Director for Acquisitions and Partnering at Homes England, with responsibility to develop and implement the government’s land acquisition strategy, ensuring that budget and land requirements are efficiently and effectively utilised to deliver Government’s objectives for increasing the supply of new homes.

Ken was previously the Regional Development Director for the South and a Project Director for the development of major development sites, including the largest ever land investment by the Government at the 3,500 home scheme at Burgess Hill in West Sussex. The transaction won ‘Deal of Year’ at the Property Week RESI Awards in 2019.

Prior to 2010, Ken was Head of Major Projects at the London Borough of Hammersmith & Fulham, leading the team responsible for the borough’s regeneration and major economic development projects, including Earls Court and White City Opportunity Area and also the Deputy Director of Development at the London Thames Gateway Development Corporation where he led the Government’s strategic delivery including physical investment in the Lower Lea Valley and its interface with the emerging 2012 Olympics site.

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Ellie Jenkins

Partner

Akerlof

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Ellie Jenkins is a Partner at the market-leading consultancy Akerlof. She has significant experience in supporting public and private sector clients in balancing long-term strategic priorities with pragmatic solutions to maximise, measure and evaluate social, economic, and environmental value. Having led social impact for a Tier One contractor for a decade, Ellie is experienced in community and stakeholder consultation.

Formerly Director of Engagement and Communications for the Construction Innovation Hub, Ellie contributed to and helped to roll out key sector policy, including the Construction Playbook. Ellie led the development, testing and government engagement in the Value Toolkit, which provides a practical mechanism for achieving better social, environmental, and economic outcomes for infrastructure investment. Ellie is currently working with the Infrastructure Projects Authority and the Cabinet Office to implement value-led investment.

Karl Limbert

Director of Strategy

Equans UK & Ireland

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Karl began his career in an intelligence role before taking up senior positions in both central and local government. During the 2010’s Karl successfully led several large public private partnership programmes in the regeneration, education, and energy sectors, before being appointed as Director of Property for the London Borough of Kingston Upon Thames. Karl joined ENGIE in 2017 as Commercial Development Director before being promoted into his current role as Director of Strategy for EQUANS UK & Ireland in 2019.

A proud product of several ‘bog standard’ comprehensive schools, he is a graduate of the University of Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership, an Academician at the Academy of Urbanism, a Fellow of the University of Cambridge Centre for Science and Policy, and is currently undertaking research into AI at the Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence. Outside of work, Karl enjoys trail running, gravel biking, and snowboarding.

Lynne Main MBE

Head of Safety and Health at Work

DEFRA

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Lynne is the Head of Safety & Health at Work for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra). The Safety & Health at Work team form part of Defra group Property with a remit across all aspects of health and safety.

Lynne has worked for Defra since joining the Department in 1990. After joining the Health and Safety Unit in 1996, as their Admin Officer, Lynne progressed her health and safety career – which now spans four decades – studying for her health and safety qualifications on top of working full-time (and being a working mum).

In June 2021 Lynne was awarded an MBE in the Queen’s Birthday honours for services to Safety, Health & Wellbeing at Work for Defra.

Kieron Murphy

Director of Workplace Hubs

Matrix Booking

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Kieron has worked at Matrix for 10 years and looks after over 100 UK and Irish central and local government organisations on the public sector hubs network. As part of the Hybrid and Hubs series, Kieron is speaking to public sector customers about their experiences and lessons learned during the dramatic workplace changes in recent years.

Lara Newman

Chief Executive

LocatED

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Lara has over 25 years’ experience in property and development. Having worked with many of the UK’s biggest landowners, agents and developers, Lara has held a number of strategic leadership and board positions.

Her experience of property deals and complex capital investment projects for government education capital programmes underpinned her determination to bring commercial insight and rigour the DfE’s free schools development programme.

Eleni Nicolaou

Property Fast Stream

Cabinet Office

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Eleni is a second year Property Fast Streamer currently posted in the Defra Group Build Team. Born and raised in Leeds, she recently completed her undergraduate degree in Philosophy at the University of Leeds. It was here that Eleni decided that she didn’t just want to think about affecting the world around her but actually make a physical difference. So when she discovered the Property Fast Stream she decided you couldn’t get more physical than bricks and mortar.

Construction seemed like the natural next step, and she is now working towards her MRICS on the Project Management pathway. With much of her spare time being put towards studying for her MSc Construction Management, Eleni currently eats, sleeps and breathes property. However, on the occasion she fancies taking off her hard hat she can be found painting in her sketchbook or playing Dungeons and Dragons with friends.

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Caroline Paradise

Head of Research & Innovation

Atkins

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Caroline Paradise is a Technical Director, and Head of Research & Innovation within the Building Design practice at Atkins. She is a qualified Architect with a PhD in Architecture and 18yrs experience in applied research within the built environment industry.

She currently leads a multi-disciplinary Research & Innovation team focusing on themes including Human Experience, Technology Advancement and the Creative Process. Her role supports a research-driven design approach to provide innovative solutions across a range of sectors, including Education, Residential and Transportation.

Since the beginning of her career, Caroline has been passionate about the importance of design to support the health and wellbeing of all building users. Caroline led the development of Atkins’ HCD toolkit, an innovative design service supported by a suite of digital tools which puts user experience and wellbeing at the heart of design decision making. This methodology and suite of tools won AJ100 Best Use of Technology award in 2017.

Lynda Rawsthorne

Government Head of Property Profession

Cabinet Office

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Lynda Rawsthorne was appointed Government Head of Property Profession and Director, Property Capability, Sponsorship & Standards, in August 2023.

Lynda is head of the Government Property Profession, the community of property professionals across government. She provides professional leadership across a diverse range of government departments and arms-length bodies which deliver the government’s property ambitions.

Lynda has over 25 years’ professional experience across the property lifecycle including valuation, managing estates as well as delivering transformational and construction-based programmes. A Fellow of both the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors and the Association of Project Management, Lynda is a graduate of the Major Project Leadership Academy at the University of Oxford.

Jonathan Russell

Chief Executive

VOA

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Jonathan began his civil service career 33 years ago in the Health and Safety Executive. He joined the VOA as Chief People Officer in 2018.
Previous roles include working in policy, leading on both primary and secondary legislation, working in the Secretary of State’s Private Office and international work at European Union and United Nations level.

His most recent role prior to the VOA was Director for HR Services at DWP. Before his career in the Civil Service, he worked in agriculture and related industries.

Robert Stone

Technical Director

Homes England

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Robert is a chartered surveyor with over 30 years real estate experience in both the public and private sectors. He joined Homes England in Jan 2020 and leads the Technical Services Team of 100 specialists providing a full range of technical advice and support for the delivery of new homes. Amongst his responsibilities is Homes England’s £500m construction programme, management of the Estate and office facilities. He is a member of the Govt Property Leaders Board and the Govt Construction Board.

He was previously Head of Estates at the MoD, where he managed a professional team of 270 staff, providing a full range of estates services across the largest property portfolios in the UK, he was responsible for the MoD’s disposals programme of approx. £200m pa, releasing surplus land for 55,000 new homes, board member of the Public Sector Land Board and on the Housing Implementation Task Force.

Before joining the MOD, Robert was at Balfour Beatty Investments for 6 years, Development Director responsible for residential development and was Project Director on the East Wick and Sweetwater regeneration project at the Olympic Park, a £1billion GDV project providing 2,000 new apartments, three schools, shops, offices, new roads, bridges and other infrastructure.

Jay Sutherland-Pownall

Head of Health and Safety

Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office

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Jamie is currently Head of Health and Safety at the Foreign Office, having previously worked in the Defence, Construction, Nuclear, Pharmaceutical and Healthcare sectors.

His role involves leading the safety function responsible for the safety and health of over 17,000 colleagues and their families in over 160 countries, and operating from over 250 British Embassies and High Commissions.

Jamie is a Fellow of IOSH and IIRSM, and former IOSH Vice President and Council Member.

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Stephanie Walters

Regional Director and Central Government Key Account Lead

Faithful+Gould

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Throughout Stephanie’s 15 years with F+G, her people focus and desire to encourage positive change across the business has always been clear. Stephanie is an Account Lead for one of our Key Central Government clients alongside her role as a people and culture leader for the business. She was an integral part of developing our health and wellbeing strategy for the UK and Europe, sitting on our Wellbeing Steering Committee from its outset in 2017. Her input has included influencing initiatives, raising awareness, providing feedback and reporting back to the wider business.

Stephanie is a trained Mental Health First Aider and contributed to the roll out of this programme across the business in support of our people.

Stephanie brings her passion for wellbeing into all aspects of her work and believes that the wellbeing and mental health of our people is key to organisational success and sustainability.

Details here soon

More speakers soon…