§ Mr. BakerTo ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he will list those properties held by his Department and agencies responsible to him which are(a) wholly and (b) mainly unoccupied at present, giving locations and when they became so unoccupied in each case. [105311]
§ Angela EagleIn early 1998, all of the Department's properties were transferred to the private sector under two separate Private Finance Initiative contracts. We now no longer own nor hold any property. Instead, serviced office accommodation is purchased from our two private sector partners, Trillium and the Newcastle Estate Partnership.
The deal which we negotiated with Trillium, the PRIME contract allowed us to hand back all of our "surplus" space, in both wholly and partly unoccupied buildings, to Trillium so that there is now no continuing cost to the Department. The Department also has the flexibility to vacate and hand back further space over the life of the contract, at nil cost, so it is extremely unlikely that we will have any surplus accommodation in the future. The only unoccupied space that is maintained is held for strategic reasons.