Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what the total cost was of refurbishments to his Department's offices at 39 Victoria Street in the last 12 months; and what the procurement references were for these refurbishments.

Alongside ongoing maintenance, within the last 12 months work has been carried out at 39 Victoria Street to remove a suite of individual ministerial offices and replace these with a flexible co-working space accessible by all members of staff that can also be used for large meetings.

Ministers now use desks on an open-plan floor alongside department staff.

Space has also been provided to allow NHS England staff to work in the Department to further improve collaboration between the two organisations.

This work has been undertaken alongside a wider programme to reduce the number of Department of Health and Social Care offices from 21 to 10 core locations, as well as a wider reform and efficiency programme, which has seen the Department’s headcount reduced by around one in six over the last year.

The total cost of refurbishment work at 39 Victoria Street was approximately £140,000. All work has been undertaken by existing facilities management contractors and within existing, pre-allocated, annual budgets for property maintenance.