As


WHATEVER HAPPENED


TO”BETTER WAYS OF WORKING”?


Gavin Leonard


Gavin Leonard Chief Architect at Ealing Council was part of the team that won the ACES Award for Excellence in Asset Management back in 2002. This is the story of what has happened since then.


Ealing Council moves


to complete whist might be


considered the final phase of the BWoW programme, the ‘likely lads’ (and ‘ladesses’) of the EPT are therefore grateful to “The Terrier” for providing this opportunity to feedback to ACES members what the process has achieved and the lessons learned along the way.


BWoW “final “ pilot layout


Introduction


ACES members of a certain vintage may recall watching a ‘sitcom’ of the 1970’s in which the comic misadventures of two old friends were played out against the increasing responsibilities of their advancing middle age. What added to viewers’ interest in these, “Likely Lads”, were the references to another series – some ten years earlier- and the contrast between the current circumstances of the two protagonists and the hopes and aspirations of their more youthful selves.


Considerably less amusing but perhaps of more relevance to readers of “The Terrier” is the story of Ealing Council’s “Better Ways of Working” office accommodation strategy. Those more mature readers may also recall that in 2002 officers from Ealing’s Property Team (EPT) were invited to present their “Better Ways of Working” (BWoW) concepts for a radical re-organisation of the Council’s use of its office portfolio. This had been devised to meet the twin challenges of a potential loss of Ealing’s office ‘footprint’ of 70 -80% within a period of less than ten years and the impact of an existing accommodation strategy that had mis-diagnosed the requirement for centralised office space by a factor of 100 !


The ideas were well received by ACES who bestowed upon the EPT the honour of its “Award for Excellence in Property Management”. Encouraged by this endorsement from such a well-respected body, the EPT submitted a summary of BWoW and an associated pilot study for consideration by the RICS. Against strong commercial-sector opponents the project was rewarded with the inaugural RICS prize for “Outstanding Occupation Management” in 2003.


No doubt many ACES members are, like the author, slightly cynical with regard to ‘pilot’ initiatives (as BWoW might have been considered at that time) that are lauded for their potential to deliver substantial benefits but which, through changes in personnel and / or corporate priorities, tend to “fizzle-out” without ever fully realising their original objectives.


6


BWoW - predicted occupancy curves (2002) The BWoW Pilot


The principles upon which the BWoW pilot was based; abolition of cellular offices, off-site storage of all but essential, day-to- day paper filing, minimising wasteful secondary circulation, flexible and ‘touchdown’ working, hot-desking, relocation of ‘semi-industrial’ office processes (post, reprographics, printing, stationery and archive storage), bookable meeting rooms, etc. are now commonplace – to varying degrees – throughout local government. However in 1999/2000 when the principles of BWoW were first being formulated, the EPT had very few precedents within the public sector against which to benchmark its ideas. As a consequence, despite seeking out for consideration some very ‘cutting edge’ but potentially applicable commercial models of office occupancy, the EPT was obliged to propose some very unfamiliar working practices to the Council’s Corporate Board as part of its solution to the emerging accommodation problem.


THE TERRIER - Autumn 2011


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