Property Services Agency

HC Deb 26 October 1989 vol 158 cc554-5W

Mr. Conway

To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment whether he will make a statement on the future of the Property Services Agency.

Mr. Chope

My right hon. Friend the then Secretary of State announced on 25 May 1988 that the Property Services Agency should operate on business lines. Since then, good progress has been made and as a result the Government have decided that it will be in the long-term interest of the PSA and its staff to privatise its commercial activities as soon as the necessary arrangements can be made, which include the introduction of commercial accounts and the restructuring of its organisation. The earliest practicable date is likely to be in the second half of 1992.

The PSA's customers will be fully untied from 1 April 1990 and I will be giving the PSA some immediate freedom to compete for work in new markets so that it has an opportunity to establish itself in them in advance of privatisation.

The bulk of the PSA's activities relate to project management, design services, maintenance of property and estate management services and these will be the core of the new private organisation. Those of the PSA's current activities that are essentially governmental will be retained within the Department. These activities include management of the Government's common user estate, for which executive agency status will be considered.