The Office of Government Property (OGP) must mandate the use of standardised definitions of maintenance backlog if departments are to address the growing £47bn backlog of work.
The call for the mandate follows an investigation by the National Audit Office (NAO) into the maintenance backlog and the publication today of its Managing public service facilities report.
The NAO stated: “The government’s data on the condition of its properties and the maintenance backlog are incomplete, out of date, and use inconsistent definitions, which hinders the government’s ability to make effective funding decisions.”
The NAO revealed a number of points of failure in data collection, including the fact that the most recent attempt by the OGP to quantify the maintenance backlog across government property, in March 2022, did not include data on the MoD’s property, except for single living accommodation for service personnel.
Largest maintenance backlogs
MoD: £15.3bn
Schools: £13.8bn
Hospitals and other NHS trusts: £13.8bn
Prisons and probation: £1.8bn
Courts and tribunals: £1.3bn
Jobcentres and assessment centres: £1.1bn
Similarly, HM Prison and Probation Service’s calculation of replacement costs for probation centres is based on 2019 values.
The NAO found that organisations include different costs in their calculations of the backlog, preventing decision-makers from comparing maintenance backlogs across government. “This affects the government’s ability to make strategic decisions on property, including prioritisation of funding and delivery of cross-government initiatives,” the NAO said.
The NAO called for the OGP to:
- mandate that departments and arm’s-length bodies use the standardised definition of maintenance backlog by March 2026;
- include data on the maintenance backlog in the State of the Estate reports from 2026-27 onward; and
- work with departments to develop a strategic plan for the government to contain and then reduce the maintenance backlog, backed up by a longer-term cross-government programme.
What departments must do
Also, the NAO called on government departments to:
- use the new standardised condition and backlog data tools to provide comprehensive condition and backlog data to OGP for inclusion in the 2026-27 State of the Estate report;
- update their strategic asset management plan (SAMP) by the end of Q4 2026-27 to include a long-term property plan, which sets out the capital needs of the service over the next 10 or more years, and a plan to reduce their backlog;
- ensure that all ALBs and public-funded buildings are in scope of departmental SAMP or produce one themselves; and
- undertake a full risk assessment of the impact of condition on their service delivery (using the OGP risk impact assessment tool), and update their departmental risk registers by the end of Q4 2025-26.
The NAO noted that the government is taking action to improve the quality, completeness and consistency of information on the condition of its property and the maintenance backlog. After some delays, the OGP aims to have implemented InSite, an enhanced data collection system, by March. The OGP hopes the new system will improve data consistency and will use it to gather information on government property, as per the government property data standard, the NAO said.
It should be noted that the NAO report focuses on the properties that the government uses to deliver services to the public and support its operations. Among several caveats, it does not cover offices, equipment, land, overseas properties or infrastructure assets. Furthermore, the report does not cover the implications of the PFI handbacks.
Don’t miss out on information management and digital construction news: sign up to receive the BIMplus newsletter.
