Plans to create a Manchester campus of civil servants comparable to Whitehall gained support from an independent review today.

The Ian Smith Review, which was published alongside the Budget, says the business case for relocating 5,000 civil servants to Manchester’s Mayfield site is convincing and would benefit from today’s recommendations to relocate 15,000 civil servants out of London in the next five years.

Smith’s report says: “My recommendations should help realise the Mayfield project as they will improve the economics of relocation for departments.”

It says investing £250 – £300m in the Mayfield site would generate net savings of £700m.

Phil Woolas, regional minister for the North West, said: “The Smith report acknowledges the benefits of clusters for civil service relocation, which is good news not just for Manchester and the Mayfield proposals but for the region as a whole.

“I am currently working closely with Liverpool city region to put together a proposition which I hope will be similarly attractive to Whitehall based departments and would welcome similar ideas from other areas of the North West.”

The report suggests that in general large, cross-departmental campuses would be more attractive than individual departments relocating on their own.

It also says that departments located in Whitehall should be treated as a single campus, managed jointly in order to achieve efficiencies.

It endorses the idea of public property being managed in joint property vehicles, adding to evidence elsewhere in the Budget that the government plans to set up Strategic Property Vehicles for all state owned property.

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