The Cabinet Office has appointed Home Office chief operating officer Mike Parsons as the new head of the Government Property Unit.
Parsons will oversee the UK’s largest land and property estate, replacing Sherin Aminossehe who is leaving the role to run Lendlease’s commercial business.
A major part of the job will be overseeing the “public bodies relocation programme” to relocate all ministerial departments based in London to major cities around the UK.
The programme, which forms part of the industrial strategy, will aim to stimulate industry clusters in different cities, from health and finance to culture and manufacturing. It follows on from the HM Revenue & Customs-led hubs project, which has created 13 major office requirements across the country for new HMRC offices shared with other government departments.
The wider programme aims to see the government office estate shrink from 800 buildings to fewer than 200 by 2023.
Parsons has been chief operating office at the Home Office since 2013, where his role included managing a £13bn budget, 28,000 staff in the UK and overseas, national data and technology systems, and the department’s estates strategy. From 2011-12 to 2015-16, the Home Office was the fourth most successful department in reducing property costs – by £92m, a 32% reduction.
He was previously director of resources and performance at Hertfordshire County Council, and completed a nine-year stint as deputy chief executive of Cambridgeshire County Council from 2000 to 2009.
Parsons said: “I am delighted to be joining Cabinet Office to lead the government’s estates strategy, supporting the team of estates professionals at GPU, and sponsoring the shadow Government Property Agency as it moves towards its launch in 2018.”
The GPA is a new agency which is being established to charge departments market rents for their properties as part of the government’s estate efficiency drive.
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