Full Report - National Audit Office

part threeThe Department is working to put in placethe right Information Technology systems tosupport the new ways of working3.50 Estate Information Systems workarounds have beenidentified and put in place. The Department is undertakingan incremental development of a more permanentsolution over the period 2004-05 to 2006-07.The new Defence Estates Regional Structurehas not yet had the opportunity to impact onbusiness improvement3.51 The Department considered that the regionalstructure of Defence Estates was too flat and the span ofcontrol too wide for effective control and managementof change. Also there was some duplication andinconsistencies of approach. Defence Estates has sincebeen reorganised and its Operations Directorate is nowheaded by a senior civil servant with three directors:Director UK North, Director UK South and DirectorInternational. Individuals have been appointed tothese posts but detailed structures beneath are still beingworked out.Having a number of estate-related projectsmanaged by different parts of the Departmentmay dilute opportunity for improvement3.52 In accordance with Departmental policy, DefenceEstates is taking on some legacy projects such as theCorsham Development Project. There may be benefits inDefence Estates taking responsibility for all existing estateprojects to make best use of focused expertise and to learnfrom experience. This could widen the delivery of benefitsfrom the new management and contracting practices.Benefits could also accrue through putting all new PrivateFinance Initiatives with Defence Estates to pool and takeadvantage of the limited expertise in this area within theDepartment. Separately, the Department has set up a newunit, headed by a secondee from Partnerships UK, to lookcritically at Private Finance Initiative solutions.28MINISTRY OF DEFENCE: MANAGING THE DEFENCE ESTATE