§ Mr. AspinwallTo ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will make a statement on the future location of his Department's Procurement Executive.
§ Mr. NeubertAs a result of the studies we have carried out over the past 18 months, we have now decided to proceed as follows. The Procurement Executive's land and air systems controllerates, the ordnance board, and associated work of the Director General of Defence Contracts will be moved from London to Keynsham, east Bristol in 1993. Collocation in the same travel-to-work area of the sea systems controllerate, the majority of whose staff currently work in Bath, will be tackled progressively and completed as soon as practicable thereafter. In this way, we shall achieve the collocation in the same travel-to-work area of the bulk of the Procurement Executive's project management activities.
The controllerates currently comprise some 3,800 posts in London, of which up to 1,100 are non-mobile grades. In addition, there are a further 1,100 sea systems posts currently located in Portsmouth and Weymouth, of which some 200 are non-mobile grades. We would expect to recruit locally such replacements as are necessary to fill the non-mobile posts.
A large number of options was considered for these moves. The Bristol-Bath solution proved to be the most economically attractive, both in terms of initial outlay, and of savings in running costs, which are expected to amount to over £50 million a year once the programme is complete. It is well placed in relation to the operational needs of the staff concerned for frequent direct contacts with Ministry of Defence headquarters, with the defence research establishments, and with contractors.
Collocation in the same travel-to-work area will enable us to offer our staff better career prospects without further domestic disruption, will lead to reduced costs, and improved efficiency and professionalism in the short term while providing us with the flexibility we require to adapt the Procurement Executive to future needs.