“We’re a central hub of expertise now within Government and our mission is to strategically deliver a smaller, greener, better Government estate, you know, my vision for us is to be a really well admired, collaborative enabler working across all of the departments in Government to really support the Government missions and Civil Service reform towards a leaner and agile Civil Service.”
Susan Freeman
Hi, I’m Susan Freeman. Welcome back to our PropertyShe podcast series brought to you by Mishcon de Reya in association with the London Real Estate Forum, where I get to interview some of the key influencers in the world of real estate and the built environment. Today, I am delighted to welcome Mark Bourgeois. Mark was appointed the Chief Executive Officer of the Government Property Agency in October 2024, heading up a 400-strong team that aims to transform how the Civil Service works and what its real estate portfolio looks like. He is an established corporate leader with over 30 years of strategic and operational real estate experience across asset management, investment, development and operations.
Mark was previously Managing Director UK and Ireland at Hammerson, Executive Director at Capital & Regional and Interim Corporate Director City Development at Liverpool City Council. He studied Industrial Economics at Nottingham University and began his career in audit at KPMB.
So now we’re going to hear from Mark Bourgeois about this move from the private to the public sector, his exciting role at the Government Property Agency and what the vision is for the portfolio.
Mark, good morning.
Mark Bourgeois
Morning, Susan.
Susan Freeman
We were both in Leeds last week for UKREiiF but actually didn’t get a chance to, to talk there but I just wondered, did you have a good week? What were the highlights for you?
Mark Bourgeois
Well, Susan, firstly thanks so much for having me on the podcast, a real pleasure to have a conversation with you. Yeah, it’s interesting isn’t it, I think, it reflects the size and scale of UKREiiF that I think we waved at one another from a distance a couple of times but didn’t get the chance to talk and you know what an event, I mean it was a, you know, I think a real celebration of everything that’s good as well as all the challenges associated with you know real estate, regeneration and infrastructure right now. It was a very timely one for the Government Property Agency and we can talk a little bit more about that but we’re still a relatively young organisation, I’m still relatively new in my tenure there as permanency having done that now for six months, so it’s a great opportunity to meet a lot of you know old and new contacts to talk a bit about what we’re there to do, you know how we, what are mission, our purpose might be and really get those messages you know out there to working with the huge number of stakeholders that are associated with the work that we do. I think what was also really helpful was this is, this is a challenging time we’re in right now and to go into UKREiiF and to be able to share some of those challenges with those experts in the market was really helpful and I had some great conversations, learned quite a lot about you know where we might innovate, how we might do things differently in all of that. So, yeah, as always, a great event and the sun shone, right, that was good. I think my only, my only issue with it, it is so big, I mean there’s many people I didn’t see, there’s many places I didn’t go, there’s many of the cities I didn’t actually get a chance to talk to. It was great from a Government perspective, for the first time this year there was one Government pavilion which gave the opportunity for you know the Government Property Agency, our colleagues at DBT and Office of Government Property, there’s a lot of acronyms you’re going to hear here and you’ll have to pick me up on those but a lot of, it enable us to be all in one place, which I think is quite a thing for stakeholders and navigating their way around the Government organisations to see us all in one place so, yeah, I was quite focussed on, on that rather than getting out and about as I’d like to. But real highlight though as well from, it wasn’t all work and messaging, there was also a very, there was a particular rocket UKREiiF gig on the evening where I was delighted to be part of that as well, which was quite a nice contrast to all of that.
Susan Freeman
Yeah, unfortunate, I missed that, I really, really wanted to go to it and I, you’re a drummer, aren’t you?
Mark Bourgeois
I do, I, I surround myself with really, really great musicians and as a very average drummer, it’s quite a privilege to be able to do my best to make them all sound brilliant, which they, well it doesn’t, it’s not very difficult because they are.
Susan Freeman
I don’t believe you’re ‘average’ for, for a minute. Now, I’ll have to be there next year and actually hear this in progress. So, before we discuss your relatively new role at the Government Property Agency, let’s talk a little about your, your background and where did you grow up and what was your, what was your path into real estate?
Mark Bourgeois
So I actually started life in Essex, my dad was a product planner at the Ford Motor Company in the ‘70s and the reason I mention that is I think I, my early understanding of leadership and management was quite a kind of blunt ‘70s Ford, you know, show no weakness, always get one over on, on, because that’s the only way to survive, so it was interesting and when I think about leadership now, that was quite a you know formative time and yeah, but then moved to Yorkshire, moved to Yorkshire when I was seven and grew up then in a place called Ilkley, it’s for those who know it, it’s a lovely place, a little bit smug these days actually, it’s a very pleased with itself location, it keeps getting voted as ‘Best Place to Live’ by The Sunday Times but for good reason, I love being there. And, yeah, having then gone to university in Nottingham to study Industrial Economics with Accounting, came back, worked in Leeds for KPMG for a couple of years, then moved to Donaldson’s Chartered Surveyors and quite quickly then went to London and actually, since then, most of my professional career since the mid ‘90s has been focussed, focussed on London rather Leeds, originally lived in London, met my wife, had our children and did then the, actually I think we were probably ahead of time because in 2007, obviously wasn’t anticipating what would happen in Covid but we thought a lifestyle out of London might be a nice thing to do, so moved to Ilkley and I, I weekly commuted ever since which has been great for my career, it’s something that you make compromises as well but that’s I think a big, big part of what shaped, shaped how I, how I operate these days.
Susan Freeman
So you, you were an early adopter actually because during Covid obviously a lot of people did make those sort of lifestyle choices. So, I mean retail property was your thing wasn’t it and I think it was 18 years at Capital & Regional…
Mark Bourgeois
Yep.
Susan Freeman
…as a Director and then you joined Hammerson in 2017 and led the UK and Ireland business so, you were there during a period of a lot of structural change for retail and there must have been quite a lot of learning there.
Mark Bourgeois
Yeah, indeed, I mean going back to the Capital & Regional days, I had a fantastic ride with, with C&R, it was a brilliant, brilliant company to work with. I think we’re all very reflective with the passing of Martin Barber relatively recently on just what an impact he had on actually, the industry and bringing the concept of the REIT, you know very firmly over to the UK and I was lucky enough to be part of that from the late ‘90s to be part of Martin’s team working with Ken Ford and others in forming the Mall Fund and you know we originally started from nothing, a couple of shopping centres and grew it to a £3 billion really highly operational retail, customer focussed business and you know did that over about seven or eight years and I learned so much about growing a business operationally, about branding, around culture, I learned a lot of really, the hard way from a leadership perspective, I guess made lots and lots of mistakes relatively young to be, to be in a reasonably senior position, growing a business as we did. So, had an incredible ride to that point, you know, and then from 2008, it was a totally different place, we then spent quite a lot of time repairing the balance sheet, consolidating, selling, I learned a huge amount there about restructuring, around, around debt, around the importance of banking relationships and investor relationships and you know a hugely formative time, just as I was joining the Board. So, yeah, that took me to Hammerson, but I always, I always reflect on that C&R context in talking about Hammerson, particularly I think also stepping back and thinking of retail and we spent, as an industry from, well, before my time, 20, 30 years of complete boom time where the perceived wisdom was that a shopping centre at the heart of a town centre was the key to regeneration, you know, local government all bought into that, investor did, retailers did, and there was effectively a gold rush of retail property from the mid-‘80s right through to, well I mean right through to I guess those latter developments, places like Oxford, Trinity Leeds where, and indeed Victoria Gate in Leeds and between that a massive transformation of towns… of our city centres. So I think all of that is quite, I mean very interesting and very relevant to then what we all experienced in Covid with the migration to online, the repricing both from a rental perspective but from an investment perspective of the whole retail sector and the impact that then had, I mean it was a devastating impact on the balance sheets for, for all those organisations that were involved so, you know being reflective again, a huge privilege to have been part of that, it was a very, very tough time, a very tough time for the organisation to work through and you know we all learned a lot, worked incredibly hard, I think had some you know brilliant partnerships with some of our retailers as well as, as well as our investors and our funders but the relationships to get through some of that with the occupiers were I think stronger than ever during that time because we were all respectively under, under so much pressure, but it was a fantastic five years I spent with Hammerson, it was, it’s a wonderful job, it’s a wonderful business to, to be part of with some incredible assets but yeah, very, very tough as well.
Susan Freeman
Interesting isn’t it that as you say, for so many years regeneration was around retail, retail you know was, was such a key, key part. What is the new retail, in terms of regeneration?
Mark Bourgeois
And that Susan is the big question that 16,000 people were trying to work through in Leeds last week. There’s no simple answer but I have, I will give you an answer to that. But I think when you, when you think about what retail can do when it does well and the brilliant examples of, of retail regeneration, there’s no doubt that it remains an absolute core part of, of any place. A really good development makes a place feel good about itself, you know makes a place feel confident. You look at examples, you know iconic building examples, places like, I love the example of, I mean this is clearly a well worked one, but Selfridges in Birmingham and the, how that made Birmingham feel and that Bull Ring development at the time, you know, I can’t under, underestimate that but as history I think has, has shown us, there’s a lot more to regeneration than a really great shopping centre and assuming everything flows, flows from there. I think I was better equipped to answer that question in, I felt better equipped to answer that question then with the experience that followed Hammerson, I was really, really lucky to have a bit of time after Hammerson to reflect, reflect on what next and realised I quite enjoyed corporate leadership, I quite enjoyed, I was reasonably good at numbers, I clearly knew my property and you know the various skills associated with real estate, but I also felt that there was an opportunity to do something a little bit beyond the plc world that I’d, that I’d worked in and I’ve always felt quite purpose driven, I think anyone in real estate feels purpose driven but I was lucky enough then to be asked to be part of the team at Liverpool City Council that was essentially all interim leadership roles to help stabilise and reset the Council after a very difficult period where the Mayor had been arrested and there was all sorts of allegations about what had gone on and spending six, about 12 months in that role round a table with a leadership team who were very different from the type of people that had been round the table at say Hammerson or Capital & Regional, you know the Director of Children’s Services, Director of Adult Services, actually some brilliant women in that city as well who, who, it’s quite a unique city, it’s a very matriarchal city, Susan, and I loved being part of that and to realise just how, it completely changed my perspective of, of what place and what regeneration is about, having always looked at from a got a big, you know, multi, well 100 million investment in the middle of a city centre as being my focus and the kind of bias to think everything flows from there, to actually take a helicopter view and to get on my bike to every ward in the city of Liverpool, speak to the, the councillors, see the housing stock, look where the employment was, look at where the skills were and weren’t, look at how opportunities to create different zones with regeneration themes in a coherent way could really, could really play in. I probably learned more in that twelve months than I had done in the 10, 15 years honing my retail and corporate skills with Capital & Regional and Hammerson and that was a real lightbulb moment I think in trying to then answer the question, ‘What next?’, ‘What’s the, what’s the new retail?’ Probably, I’ll stop there for a moment, Susan, I’ll stop there for a moment.
Susan Freeman
I thought you were going to give me the answer there, Mark, so…
Mark Bourgeois
Well, okay, so let me have a go. Again, I think when from a pure, okay, I’ve got a shopping centre, I’ve got a retail location in the middle of a city centre, I now have 50% of that that probably is beyond its economic use and could be repurposed and it’s within a wider retail centre, then of course for the last, in pre-Covid, then there is, you know, a lot of perceived thinking around the alternative uses and you know you don’t need me to repeat what many people have said before me but it was about alternative uses, leisure and F&B, a big one, that had been in play for quite some time, public services, bringing more public services into city centres, replacing that retail, another significant one and of course housing, which you know city centre living, a big one. So, a combination of all of that has been the perceived wisdom and I’m not telling you or anyone who may be listening to this anything new and I, when I say that so, probably what is the new retail is, I’m not, it is a question to answer, I think it’s for me it’s looking at it in a slightly more holistic way, it’s not what’s the new retail because I don’t think there’s one single thing or use class which will necessarily change the direction of a city centre, it’s a whole combination of you know economic strength, of skills, how skills are attracted to a place, how skills are retained in a place, how business and business investment is encouraged to be in a place, I think leadership, place leadership, local leadership plays a huge part here, having a vision for what a place can look like and a strategy that’s very specific around zones and areas, both within the city and within region, I guess I’m quite city biased, I always have seen those cities as the hubs where, from which many things flow, but I think it’s a number of things that if your question, ‘What’s the new retail in the context of regeneration?’, I think it’s a recognition that it’s more than just one thing that will change any particular place.
Susan Freeman
Yeah, I think that is a good answer. So, obviously a completely different perspective at Liverpool which takes us to your joining the Government Property Agency and you joined as Interim CEO in 2023 and as you said were appointed CEO last year so, relatively new, new role, but perhaps you can, you can tell the listeners what the role entails and what the key, key challenges are.
Mark Bourgeois
Yeah, I’ll do that. If we can just step back slightly and close the Liverpool chapter because that was important I think in me being where I am today and I’m, I was really proud to have been part of that team and, you know, when I and others moved on after about 18 months in total, it was brilliantly satisfying and reassuring to see a permanent team then in place to take things forward and, and to see Liverpool now, like any city, has its challenges, like any local government has its challenges, but to see the city having come out of those special measures and played a small part, and it is a small part, there were so many people involved, I’m really proud of that and it was a really important part and I’m hugely grateful I had the opportunity to be part of that and be part of such a wonderful city, had a ringside seat on Eurovision, seeing how culture can really impact how a place feels about itself, it was just a wonderful experience and I think that positive experience and that sense of public service which probably, if I’d have heard myself saying that 20 years ago I may have, I may have raised an eyebrow, but I genuinely felt it and it genuinely drives me into the role that I’m doing now at a Government Property Agency. So, I think to answer your question, the Government, you know I’m hugely honoured to be here, it was, it was Pat Richie, our Chair, I suspect was you know principally behind my, I suspect was principally behind my introduction, or Pat was our Chair, she’s now Chair of Homes England, which is fantastic as well, and look I was aware of the GPA I think as many, there was, I was a bit confused about was it the GPU, is it the GPA, what’s it really all about and I understand that there’s still, that’s not immediately clear to many people, which is why UKREiiF earlier is such a, such a great thing, but you know the GPA has been in Government Property Agency, it’s been in operation now for about five years, it came out of what was the Government Property Unit, we’re an executive agency of the Cabinet Office, there are about 500 people within the Agency directly employed, 400 are directly employed, another 100 who are you know on various contracts and then we have a series of strategic partners, you know, those experts across the industry, BNP Paribas, JLL, WSP, Gleeds, Atkins Realis, Tetra Tech are, give us some of that expertise and ability to flex back and forth so, we’re a central hub of expertise now within Government and our mission is to strategically deliver a smaller, green, better Government estate. Now our remit goes beyond, it goes to offices as well as warehouses but we’re focussed on offices right now, that’s been very much part of, part of my, you know I’ve been very keen that we focus, there’s a lot to do across that office estate, we manage 53% of that office estate, there’s about 230 buildings, the remaining 47% are our own managed by HMRC, DWP and the Home Office, we clearly work closely with them to ensure there’s a, you know, a strategic view across the, across the whole lot and in delivering that smaller, green, better estate, you know my vision for us is to be a really well admired, collaborative enabler working across all of the departments in Government to really support the Government missions and Civil Service reform towards a leaner and agile Civil Service. One final point I’ll make, Susan, perhaps before you might want to come in, is our four strategic objectives and these all really excite me and I think really you know motivate all of our people to have some real purpose. You know, first and foremost we are creating brilliant places for civil servants to work across all of, all of our departments and when I look at the type of work that gets done in our locations, you know I’m sitting right now in the, in The Treasury building and there’s incredible work and you know I can’t overstate the importance of the work that goes on here and providing a building and an environment to enable that to operate, huge privilege, you know I’m next door to the Cabinet Office, in fact just across the way on Whitehall, Department of Energy and Net Zero and just along the way, Department Science, Innovation and Technology, all of who doing incredibly important work in our buildings, that’s just London, outside of our buildings in every city in many towns, you know this incredibly important work with Flood Agency, Department for the Environment, whether it’s Department for Education, we house quite a lot of the Ofsted colleagues in our office in Birmingham, I was yesterday in a brilliant Home Office hub that we created at 2 Ruskin Square in Croydon, 7500 Home Office colleagues who relocated from some pretty dated buildings, those of you who know Croydon and as you might recall from my Hammerson days, it’s good to be back there on the back of some really positive investment but having closed two, two offices on behalf of the Home Office to accommodate them in a new building is just brilliant and walking round and hearing from their teams how they have enjoyed just being in this productive, collaborative, more creative and also, you know, environment where we can actually do our bit to, to engineer community. So that first point around creating the environment is such, such an important strategic objective. There’s three more. Secondly, there’s a load of cash to be saved and as a taxpayer, there’s some big needles to move if we get this right, if we do deliver that smaller, greener, better estate and generally utilisation of these with many organisations across the organisation isn’t as it should be. We have quite a few leases that are coming to an end that were originally on 25 leases so there’s quite a programme of, of shutting leases on expiry, moving them to more modern, better buildings and saving money in the, in the process. In fact in Whitehall where I’m sitting right now, we’ve reduced by around 30 buildings, we’re now just over 20, we’ve saved over £250 million per annum of running costs by operating in a more efficient way here, here in London and you know I’ve got some really specific targets and a very clear roadmap as to how we do that over the course of the, well this administration and beyond. So, yeah, number two, some really big opportunities to save money. Number three, there is a, a regeneration play here. If we take a particular location, we take a hub, you know the impact on skills, the impact on knock-on effects, giving other developers confidence to do things, you know some great examples like Darlington Economic Campus, really, really good one, I was there just a couple of weeks ago with the Board and just seeing how that’s evolving, you know, really, really smart. We have planning consent for a hub in York, part of the York Central development and 2500 homes in whole regeneration of an area, so playing our part in that is a big objective of ours. So, that’s the regeneration piece and then four, it's the green agenda and, and you know whilst, I think the politics around the green agenda being, being less prevalent as it might have been, for us at the GPA, we are you know really focussed on continuing to, to spend to save, to reduce carbon emissions and to be in better, more efficient buildings as we grow. So, yeah, some really, those four really strong objectives which I, which really get me out of bed in the morning and they do many, many of my colleagues.
Susan Freeman
You’ve got a lot, a lot to do there. And I was just wondering you know with the new, the new hubs and the, the new, new buildings, do you take leases, so you buy the sites, how ideally do you go into these situations?
Mark Bourgeois
We’ll be open on that. The preferred route would be for us to deliver the site ourselves, essentially to buy the land and to build out. That said, there’s many other ways of procuring the site so, we’ve certainly got some, some leases in place in many of our hubs, we have PFIs in some of the buildings which are quite longstanding ones, so thinking strategically how we look at those PFIs when they expire, which are interestingly not in the not too distant future, you know what we do at lease expiry on an existing lease is a, you know it gives us some strategic options but we have the capabilities in house now and one I’m quite proud about and inherited this team and all credit goes to my predecessor and those before me to inherit a team of you know very skilled project managers who’ve come from private sector, public sector, so we certainly have the capabilities to build out and also those strategic partners I mentioned earlier. We have the skills and the capabilities then on the real estate piece to, to pull together those deals and ensure we get the right, the right route. And then we have a, a front line of, of FM, really, really expert, a lot of retail, former retailers actually creating that environment within our places through just great customer service. So I guess I give you that detail because we are relatively confident, not withstanding some of the challenges, that you know self-delivery is a, is a route that we can go down. That said, we are in a, you know a very challenged environment from a finance perspective and you know we, we almost certainly will need to think creatively about how we deliver some of those huge solutions in the knowledge that there is limited capital to go towards the many, many priorities that cross this current Government. But I think we are pretty clear that, you know if you think about the Government missions of growth of skills, opportunities for all, as well as some of the green, green ones, if we put a hub in the right location, we can really help support those missions and, which is why I’m you know really proud and, and you know feel quite confident about the cases behind some of the projects we’re putting forward right now.
Susan Freeman
And there is a spending review coming up in a couple of weeks’ time so, you know you mentioned the financial constraints, is that likely to affect your strategy and what you’re trying to achieve?
Mark Bourgeois
Yeah, look, almost certainly, I mean the spending review is, is a really tough, tough environment, it’s incredibly tough to make those choices for, for this Government and you know what we do along with all of our other Civil Service colleagues is to you know present the cases, present the choices, present the benefits and you know those decisions then are political decisions as to where the cash is allocated. As I say, the, what we do at the GP I think does go to the heart of those Government missions but equally, it’s an incredibly challenging environment and some very, very tough decisions need to be made and we will adjust and adapt depending on the outcome of that spending review and adaptability and flexibility and back to my opener around REiiF, around our external partners, how we respond to you know this quite changing, complex environment I think will be you know a real sense of collaboration between us and many of our partners as to how we, how we continue to deliver the missions that I’ve, that I’ve described.
Susan Freeman
And just going back to the properties that you are, you are vacating, I know there are quite a few around, around the London estate, are those generally on leases so that you then just hand back the property and you don’t have to think about how you might sort of repurpose the property?
Mark Bourgeois
Yeah, they are typically but I would always be mindful about what we’re leaving behind, you know as a, as a, as someone who, well part of our purpose is that wider regeneration piece but I think the good news is that if we are selective and careful about where we close and how we, where we relocate then the alternative use on what we’re leaving behind is typically or hopefully is then one that’s more suitable to, to an office location or not as the case may be. A good example, we were in Newcastle last week and we’ve done some incredible work going up in Newcastle, particularly around the Pilgrim Quarter, it’s a Reubens Brothers development and you know government occupiers have been a key part of that, HMRC have taken a big hub there, that’s under construction and we’re supporting DWP. The reason I used that as an example, Susan, is those are essentially consolidating from you know edge of town locations, Benton Park being a key one, which they’re not our sites, I don’t know this for sure and I wouldn’t necessarily speak for the landowners or anyone considering to acquire those but they have obvious alternative uses that go beyond an office so, a real virtuous circle there in so far as there’s then 11,000 Civil Servants bringing vibrancy to the city centre and then some land released at the edge of the city of Newcastle which then can be put to, and assuming it’s housing use, can be then put to a really good alternative use, which is another, housing clearly being another key part of the Government’s mission.
Susan Freeman
So, how does it work? Obviously, you are relocating quite a lot of, you know, Civil Servants and jobs are going from London and there are these new regional hubs that you’ve talked about. Do people tend to move or is it a question of recruiting people in the area or, or a mixture of both?
Mark Bourgeois
Yeah, it’s a really good, good question, Susan and the wider Places for Growth programme is run out our colleagues in the Cabinet Office, the Places for Growth team, who spend a lot of time then, as we do, working across all of the departments, who themselves have workforce plans and you know we’re the strategic property enabler, the collaboration required to work across all departments to ensure that there’s a cohesive workforce plan, a location plan, you know takes a huge amount of effort but in terms of your question, ‘How does it work?’, it starts at that strategic level. So, what’s the vision? And the vision is to, is to bring Civil Servants closer to the people they serve, which is outside of London and that’s, that goes to the heart of the, of the Places for Growth and GPA mission, which is you know hugely supported from this administration. I think what feels different and I feel, and I talked about this quite a lot last week, is there is a real sense of the need for collaboration between each of the departments. You know, my job involves building some really strong relationships with you know chief operating officers across each of those big departments to, to ensure we’re really working together so, we can put a forward looking strategic estates plan that absolutely marries alongside what their workforce plans might be and that’s pretty complex and it has to be done on a place by place basis, so we have a city and town plan, a portfolio plan for every location that’s a transparent portfolio plan, it shows where all the departments are, when things expire and it’s really then only by getting the right stakeholders round the table on a place by place basis and there’s been a lot of work around London initially, you then can start to, to really bring together a cohesive programme to deliver the real estate strategy but ultimately it’s driven by people and driven by, you know, that mission of bringing people closer to, bringing Civil Servants closer to the people they serve and there’s also quite a lot around, Susan, the, the creation of skills, hubs in certain locations, again outside of London, I mean within Whitehall now there is, there’s obviously this is, this is a hub, this is a policy hub with many departments but you look at Darlington for its Economic Campus, you look at Sheffield being a policy hub, we’ve talked quite a lot about Manchester being a digital hub, so that ability to bring skills together, I mean it’s a complex system and it takes a lot of work to bring all that together but you know I feel quite excited and optimistic that there’s a real will all round to make that work, which gives me the confidence, not withstanding the challenging financial environment we’re in, gives me the confidence that we can make a real difference here.
Susan Freeman
And will there be an element of the Government working, Government departments working in collaboration with local government in these regional hubs?
Mark Bourgeois
100% Susan. It’s, personally, it was great coming, having come from a city council and to understand how it looks and how it feels from the, from local government’s perspective, if, and I’m not saying that’s the case now but if there’s you know over bearing or over, over control from the centre, sometimes that doesn’t feel very good so, there’s a real sense throughout you know my colleagues and I think with this Government that this is all about absolute hand in hand collaboration with the, well, particularly the city regions as well as those cities and everything we do is in conjunction with local government. When I go to a city, I’d always want to make sure that we understand you know what their strategy is, how they are, how their plan works and how we may or may not fit into that so, yeah, it’s entirely consistent, I can’t think of any scenario, Susan, where we could possibly do what we do without close consultation and work with, with local government.
Susan Freeman
How many of these regional hubs are you planning and how many of them are up and running at the moment?
Mark Bourgeois
So, HMRC started the hubs programme and did some brilliant work over the last probably ten years where they consolidated a lot of their operational offices into single hubs, they have twelve up and running, there’s another six that have been up and running and by GPA and we have up to you know another seven that we identify that, that could be delivered at some point in the future. I think at this stage, being circumspect about those exact numbers and when they’re delivered, this is a long term programme, this is not a rush to get everything done at once and that long term view is to how we evolve and how we evolve that Government estate is one that continues but, yeah, consistent themes around building closure and shared accommodation between departments. Of the 230 or so offices that we currently occupy, I’m not giving you the exact number, but I know the exact number of what we could close and it’s a substantial proportion of that, so I think in answering your question as to how many new hubs, I think the important thing also is to think about whether it’s, it may not necessarily be a, you know a shiny new hub, I’m using Birmingham Stephenson Street, 23 Stephenson Street as an example, may not necessarily be one of those, it just may be we’ve got some space, we’ve refurbished it and we’ve closed three or four other offices to enable that, that collective space for departments to efficiently occupy in a more productive way. So if I was then to go the next level of beyond if you like the, the multi occupier hubs, there’s another swathe across pretty well every city where there’s two or three examples of us taking some space we already have, closing the other space and bringing departments into it.
Susan Freeman
And how are Civil Servants you know generally working now, obviously things have settled down a little bit post-Covid but is there flexible working, are you sort of encouraging people to sort of come into the office you know a set number of days a week? How’s it sort of panning out?
Mark Bourgeois
Well look first, I’ve got to caveat my answer to that question in so far as, you know we provide those strategic real estate solutions for each of the departments and the departments themselves then manage their, their workforce, it’s not for me or the GPA to, to direct any, any of that. What I can say though is the overall policy of, of 60% three days a week is one that’s well established, as most organisations, in certain locations we have, we have some capacity challenges, in other locations that’s not the case and we also, as most organisations do, are mindful of how we spread the workforce across the building utilisation across the week. I think where it works really well and we see a really productive office, and I’ll use Birmingham Stephenson Street as an example, you know we have created that brilliant environment, you know you’ve got some great collaboration space, you’ve got some, you’ve got some event space in the basement, you know it’s quite a contemporary environment of, of collaboration, private space, meeting rooms with some really, really good tech, you know we call it interoperability, it’s a great word I learned having joined Government but enabling a Civil Servant to seamlessly work from one office to another. I think if we can create that and when it works well, it is brilliant and Birmingham is a good example where you’ve got 21 different departments all sharing a fantastic community in that building, there’s a running club, there’s a crochet club, you know we had a, a brilliant community Iftar event during Ramadan recently where, you know the whole community was invited to, to end the fast in our community spaces at Stephenson Street and the reason I give all of that I think is relevant to answering the question as to how are Civil Servants working, I think when we can create that and create that really special community sense of, of collaboration between departments, occupancy is far better and you know I see it as our job to, to support our departments to create those environments, create those communities to, to drive up utilisation and ultimately then productivity. But you’ll, you’ll note I’ve carefully avoided giving you any percentages around how much utilisation and how, what that really looks like at the moment.
Susan Freeman
No, I think it’s a, it’s a problem for you know for everybody at the moment actually and when you’re planning your real estate portfolio to know exactly how much space you’re going to need and it carries on changing so, I suppose part of the challenge is of, of your role. So, I mean just hearing you talking about, about the role, I’m just wondering you know how different is working for Government from your previous roles and I mean is it a difficult transition and is it something that you would recommend to other people working in the private sector?
Mark Bourgeois
Well, straight off the bat I’d absolutely recommend it to anybody working in the private sector. I mean in some respects I’m reflective as whether I might have come in earlier and actually whether there should be more transition in and out of Civil Service, local government, private sector, I think there’s a lot to be said for that. There’s some obvious practical reasons why one might not do that and I understand from you know, personally I was sort of lucky enough to have the choice at a certain stage of my career to have those choices and I’m very fortunate to be able to, to do that but I would encourage anyone to think about the life in the, in the public sector, whether it’s local government or civil service, it’s hugely, hugely rewarding. There’s a very different network of people, a very diverse set of stakeholders and it’s a hugely refreshing and I’ve just grown and learned so, so much in the last, well probably from Liverpool and now here, that I hadn’t quite appreciated, which is just a brilliant feeling. So, what are the key differences? I, I do think that it takes, one of the key things I’d give to, and you know word to myself as well as others, you have to come into these roles with a massive amount of humility because you know I’m the private sector guy coming in to tell everyone how to, how to run their estate, it’s just not like that and it is genuinely quite a humbling experience coming into this and just seeing how hard and committed people work across a broad, broad range of, range of topics that go well beyond real estate, so I think humility and being really, really empathetic and understanding what’s going on around you has been you know a big part I think of my transition. From a leadership perspective, I think you’ve got to work really, really hard as a leader, I’ve been very reflective on, on my leadership style and my leadership range since coming in here. It’s probably fair to say that you have less levers and less, less, less obviously levers as you do in the private sector, the obvious sticks and the obvious carrots that you have in the private sector, it’s not quite the same in the Civil Service and as a result you have to be a very, very mindful, careful leader and for me that’s been about a full range of leadership skills that I’ve had to think about from you know right on the one side to being you know quite sometimes quite vulnerable and needing help, you know I’m here to serve, I’m here to be very empathetic and then other days, you know I need to seek permission to be very directive and this is what we’re going to do and, and then gaining the trust and creating a team environment, and look I’m by no means have I got this right but I work every day to create this, create an environment and a team that enables you to, to show those ranges of leadership and you know one day to be able to, you know be very present, very, you know, need to be very vulnerable, very present for your colleagues but on other days being super directive and getting stuff done. Being mindful and thoughtful about that, I think has been a real trait of this job in a way I hadn’t probably quite appreciated before coming in here and I’ve loved it and I’ve grown hugely as a person and as a, I hope as a leader in the process.
Susan Freeman
And are you, are you hiring new people or is the team complete? Do you operate mainly from London and Birmingham and do you then have to have people, you know, new people working from these new regional hubs that you’re creating?
Mark Bourgeois
So, we have a UK wide workforce. We, like the rest of the Civil Service are then basing that around certain hubs and certain locations but we’ve got a South-West presence, we have a Birmingham presence, a Leeds presence, we’re up in, in Glasgow and Edinburgh as well so, we have, we have presence, and other, I mean many other places, where we are fortunate enough that we can, you know we can be in some of those locations I’ve described which are all over the UK. Are we hiring? Yeah, absolutely. We continue to evolve our, our skill base. Some of the challenges of the organisation, and I’ve been very open about these in joining a relatively immature organisation, five years is not a lot of time, there’s a big focus on growth, a big focus on onboarding as was called, those government offices and a massive amount of work was done in, in getting that critical mass and as I said before, I’m hugely respectful and grateful to those who’ve gone before to creating that critical mass. The flip side of that is you end up with quite an immature system, with an immature organisation, where systems, processes are relatively immature, teams have been thrown together in a way that’s been necessary but require some, some refinement. So we’ve been on a, for the last eighteen months, part of my BAU strapline has been stabilisation, you know innovation and improvement, so we’ve stopped the onboarding for now, stabilising the organisation, but that improvement involves changing governance, you know flattening of many, many committees, deciding many different things, flatten that right down to, to a much simpler, more simplified and for now probably a more central set of decision-makings I think than I would do in the long term, that was necessary for a short period of time, but also then thinking about organisational structure and how our people are organised. What I will say, we’ve got some brilliant, brilliant people in GPA, some skills that go from you know fantastic frontline customer services, we’ve got amazing technical data people, commercial people, as well as the more traditional property skills you’d expect that I’ve already, I’ve already described, a lot of customer service, designers, we’ve got design people, so a massive range of skills. So again, in answering your question, yes we are continuing to recruit, there are certain areas where I think we need to build skills, as our remit continues to essentially grow and we continue to deliver, I think we will continue to enhance and maintain those skills, so I’m always, always interested to talk to anyone from a broad, broad range of skills and backgrounds who may think that they could have something to offer, offer GPA and I, you know I have those conversations as often as I possibly can, Susan.
Susan Freeman
There must have been lots of opportunity with the 16,000 people that were in Leeds last week.
Mark Bourgeois
Indeed. A good hunting ground.
Susan Freeman
So, just you know hearing about you know this amazing programme that you have and what the GPA is, is looking to, to achieve in changing the way that Civil Servants work, I’m just wondering what can the wider real estate sector learn from what the Government Property Agency is, is doing, I mean it just seems to be an example of real estate being used as a sort of force for good.
Mark Bourgeois
That’s a really good question because you tend to, you traditionally would think it’s, it’s the other way around, we’re there to learn, look, I think it’s a very much a two, it’s always a two-way learning experience and I, you know, one of the reasons I enjoyed REiiF so much was, you know, I learn so much from what’s going on with colleagues. I think what others can learn is when there is such a strong purpose behind an organisation, and again this might sound trite because I think every organisation would consider itself, it has a purpose, but we have an incredibly strong purpose that I hope I’ve been able to articulate and I think with that purpose and with that vision and that north star of smaller, greener, better and creating these brilliant places to bring civil servants closer to the people they serve, ultimately to help create a Civil Service that really, really supports what the Government are doing. It’s a really strong purpose. When you are having tough times and there are many, many tough times, there are many uncertainties, complexities, stresses on a complex system, with that purpose you can get through most things, you really can get through most things, I think if you can come together as an organisation, as a team, as a group, whatever it might be in that context, you can get through a lot and that’s I think, certainly what I’ve learned from this and I think anyone looking at how we operate, we’re very much, I think very much, very much see that.
Susan Freeman
And having sort of worked for such a, you know, a variety of different organisations, I just wondered what advice you give to young people wanting to come into real estate because there are so many different avenues open to them now? Where, where do you reckon that they should start?
Mark Bourgeois
I’m always really cautious of answering these questions as imagining a sort of Generation Z listening to it and you know, and me not sounding like the, the very self-contented Gen Xer so I think there’s a lot that someone coming into the industry right now is dealing with beyond the industry, I think it’s a really chall… yeah, it’s a, it’s a more uncertain time than it was when we were, when we were starting out, so I’m always very mindful of that, of that when proffering any, any advice. But look, I think that said, some of the, whilst there’s so much change in the world, I think fundamentally some things have never, ever changed, our need to be parts of communities, our need to connect, our need to, to actually feel safe and feel part of something and you know my advice to any young person would be just to recognise that and just speak to people, just position yourself as part of communities, you know whether that, you know pick the, I’m going to say pick the phone up, that sounds so dated doesn’t it, but metaphorically…
Susan Freeman
Send a WhatsApp.
Mark Bourgeois
Send a, well, not, yeah, or but send a WhatsApp but, but make contact with people, ask questions and just build communities, build your networks and build those contacts because it’s a, that human need I think has never changed, that’s I think why ultimately the mission that we’re here to create some places where people can work is, is, will fundamentally always prevail, it’s why retail has come back in a way that it has, people need to commune so I think any, any young person coming in, into this industry, aside from all these yeah, work hard, you know be kind, build your skills, you know all of that, but I think just recognise that you can’t do that without a massive community support network.
Susan Freeman
That ‘be kind’ comment, was that a Charles Handy tenet because I know you recommended to Tim Burke after you did the interview with him, 21 Letters on Life and it’s Challenges, which looks like a book that most of us should read?
Mark Bourgeois
Yeah, it’s a lovely book. I think it is, Ch… well it is, I’m also married into a, a very, very heck of a family from the Ribble Valley who, their motto is you know ‘Be Kind and Work Hard’ and I think that’s been, I have that, that mantra on a regular basis at home and it’s one that I think comes from a farming in the Ribble Valley and those communities which have served me well. But look, yeah, Charles Handy and the book, it was a big influence for me in the mid-90s, a book called The Empty Raincoat that he wrote and actually, going back to the beginning of this conversation, I talked about some of my early sort of leadership, not experiences, but what I learned about leadership, was not particularly kind and look, I love my dad and we get on very, very well but my dad’s indoctrination in the ‘70s was a very different world, so actually for reading a Charles Handy book, The Empty Raincoat, which was the premiss being that if an organisation isn’t filled with soul and kindness, it is an empty raincoat, and that massively resonated. He was, he was I think twenty years ahead of his time in writing those sort of things, just as we were coming through a lot of sort of, the management leadership cultures at the time and the, the Peter Drucker and some of the, and we were looking, and I agree we looked across to Japan, around just-in-time piece, that kind of heart and soul of leadership and that how you be and how you show up, which I think, yeah, it’s got kindness at the heart of it but probably a bit more than that in terms of community and in terms of presence and soul. That book had a huge impact on me and I was lucky enough to be able to read that in the mid-90s and it completely shifted my perspective on what I thought leadership and, was about. So yeah, the 21 Letters was one that Charles Handy wrote later in his life, 21 Letters to his grandchildren, and they’re just lovely messages that, that I think are, I mean I could read the book three or four times in a year and it would always feel reassuring and grounding with some of the messages in there.
Susan Freeman
Yes, I’m, I’m going to get, that’s one I haven’t got, I’ve got a whole, whole shelf of sort of business books but you know the question is finding the time to read them. Mark, I think we, we need to stop there and thank you so much for your time and you know keep up the good work, you’ve got quite a big role there.
Mark Bourgeois
Susan, thanks ever so much for having me, thank you for giving me the opportunity to, to talk actually, it’s always, it’s always lovely to do that and share some of the, some of my experiences so, I appreciate that and thank you. And best of luck with everything that you continue to do, Susan, I think this is, these sort of I think podcasts and conversations I think are great and I enjoy listening to them and well, let’s hope that one or two people have enjoyed listening to this one.
Susan Freeman
Yeah, let’s hope so and…
Mark Bourgeois
Let’s hope so.
Susan Freeman
Let’s hope some of the listeners get in touch with you to talk about some of the roles you’ve got there so, Mark, thank you and see you soon.
Mark Bourgeois
Thanks, Susan, bye for now.
Susan Freeman
Thank you, Mark, for talking to us about your amazing role at the Government Property Agency, your learnings and the opportunity you have to reshape the real estate portfolio and change the way the Civil Service works.
So that’s it for now. I hope you enjoyed today’s conversation. Please join us for the next PropertyShe podcast interview coming very soon.
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