Birmingham City Council has saved £3m in the last 12 months by vacating leasehold properties.
The council announced today that its Working for the Future programme had resulted in a number of buildings being vacated, creating savings on running costs and rent.
Staff have vacated city centre leased properties including Alpha Tower, …

England’s regional development agencies have lost 424  staff in total since the general election in May, Public Property UK can reveal.
The bodies, which are due to be abolished by April 2012 and employ around 2,500 staff, have recently finished a first wave of voluntary redundancies and are set to cut …

Birmingham City Council has signed a five-year deal with Abu Dhabi in a bid to win more overseas investment for the West Midlands city.
Council leader Mike Whitby today announced that Birmingham has signed a memorandum of understanding with the government in Abu Dhabi (pictured). Under this agreement, the Abu Dhabi …

Development consultant Interserve has won contracts to extend schools in the Midlands and Yorkshire worth £42m.
The largest is a £23m improvement programme at the Farnley Park High School in Leeds, which is being carried out as part of the Building Schools for the Future Programme. Work has just started and …

Birmingham City Council is set lose 79 full-time posts as it merges its planning and regeneration departments into a single team.
Its plan will mean cutting the team by one third, and setting up smaller planning and regeneration teams based in different areas across the city. It means all staff in …

As property braces itself for the Comprehensive Spending Review, Nick Johnstone considers the repercussions of a “once-in-a-century” moment in government property policy.
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A scruffy 200,000 sq ft office block is about to come on to the market in Edinburgh. Its occupier, the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), is cutting costs …

Francis Maude has announced that 192  government quangos are set to be axed, and a further 289 to be reformed.
This morning, Cabinet Office minister Maude published the definitive list of bodies to be scrapped including the Infrastructure Planning Commission and development corporations in the Thames Gateway.
The Homes and Communities Agency …

Stephen Hollowood, executive director and head of public sector at GVA Grimley, looks at which parts of the UK will be hit hardest by next Wednesday’s comprehensive spending review:
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The much-anticipated comprehensive spending review will announce funding cuts across all parts of the public sector, although more so for some …

The government is expected to give the go ahead to up to 26 of the 56 local partnerships that are due to replace regional development agencies.
Greater Manchester, Merseyside and Greater Birmingham are three of the local enterprise partnerships that the government is expected to approve.
These groups will be given powers …

Regional development agency Advantage West Midlands has today revealed 121 projects that are losing almost £37m of public sector funding in this financial year.
Schemes that have lost more than £1m each include Edgbaston Cricket Ground’s redevelopment, West Bromwich town centre’s Liberata Building, and a set of new science and agriculture …