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30-746: The PSA had its antecedents in the Ministry of Works and earlier departments dating back to the Office of Works . It was created as an autonomous agency in 1972 after the Ministry of Works had been absorbed into the Department of the Environment . The agency had the job of providing, equipping and maintaining a wide range of buildings and installations for government departments, and the armed services, as well as other bodies. It held and managed much of

60-572: A longer period. More modern examples include a large estate near central Malvern built 1952–1953 for the scientists and personnel of TRE . The styling, though more up-market, resembled the typical council estates of semi-detached houses being built around the UK during the post-war years. By the late 20th century the Well Hall example had become known as the Progress Estate. From the 1880s

90-665: The Civil Service structure, and was accountable to the Secretary of State for the Environment . Ministry of Works (United Kingdom) The Ministry of Works was a department of the UK Government formed in 1940, during the Second World War , to organise the requisitioning of property for wartime use. After the war, the ministry retained responsibility for government building projects. In 1962 it

120-620: The British Isles will hold files relating to the MOW who in 1947 enabled the first 'lists' defining and protecting historic buildings which now forms the heritage protection of over 400,000 sites. A detailed history of offices and staff remains to be written: the work of the almost completely anonymous civil servants who worked for this very large government department is largely absent from published or online sources unless these manifold official activities impinge on current specialised research on

150-737: The Drawing Office Training Centre (DOTC), in 'C' Block in the Whitgift Centre in the 1970s, moving to Quest House in 1977. The accounts section of the PSA was located in Ashdown House, Hastings which was originally built in 1966. Also located at Ashdown House, was the Directorate of Information Technology and Management Operating Systems (DITMOS), charged with providing IT procurement and database systems for

180-631: The Foreign Office it also was responsible for the fabric of British embassies and consulates across the world. Apart from English Heritage, Historic Scotland and Cadw , its vast archive is dispersed throughout many other organisations including national museums and galleries, other government departments including the Government Art Collection and the now hived-off agencies covering royal parks and palaces. Virtually every record office, every museum and every town council in

210-494: The Ministry of Works & Planning (1942–43), the Ministry of Housing and Local Government (MHLG) 1951–62, and the Ministry of Public Building and Works (1962–70) before being subsumed in the Department of the Environment in 1970 and English Heritage in 1984. Architect Frank Baines (1877–1933) guided the rapid development of estates of houses, mainly in a terraced style, for workers and their families in places close to

240-541: The Office of Works was also responsible for the upkeep of ancient monuments, a role later taken on by the Department of the Environment and later, when responsibility for heritage matters was devolved, in 1977, by English Heritage and the other home country heritage organisations. As such it forms the basis for any research into official or historic structures ranging from post offices to palaces and all archaeological sites in state care, including Stonehenge. In conjunction with

270-604: The PSA still retaining overall control. Evidence of corruption in PSA District Works Offices came to light in the early 1980s, and as a result the government appointed Sir Geoffrey Wardale to carry out an inquiry. The Wardale Report was published in October 1983. The PSA's then chief executive, Montague Alfred , was removed from his post because the Secretary of State concluded that Alfred's evidence to

300-529: The PSA was split into two separate organisations: The progress towards full commercialisation was completed in 1992, when PSA Services was itself further split into three organisations: After the break-up of the PSA many government departments took back responsibility for their estates management, and set up their own property management departments. The largest of these is the Defence Infrastructure Organisation , looking after

330-593: The PSA. In 1985, 1,500 civil servants were employed at Ashdown House. There was a UK regional network for the rest of the PSA's building and estates management work. There were offices for Scotland and Wales , and offices in the English regions (in London , Leeds , Cambridge , Hastings , Reading , Bristol , Birmingham and Manchester ; the Manchester office included Northern Ireland in its territory). Under

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360-640: The Services to offices, research facilities, airfields, dockyards and telephone exchanges for the Post Office. In 1977 it had about 1,500 major new works projects in various stages of design, and about 1,000 under construction. During that year the Agency's expenditure on new works were £400 million. For the first decade of its existence the PSA was a centralised organisation which controlled all building and estates management works for government departments and

390-405: The UK. The headquarters organisation consisted of various offices and Directorates, including the Directorate of Architectural Services (DAS), the Directorate of Post Office Services (DPOS), the Directorate of Civil Engineering Services (DCES), and the Directorate of Building and Quantity Surveying Services (DBQSS). The PSA also provided building and engineering services to the armed forces, such as

420-426: The armed services. The PSA was the central budget holder for all such works, and let contracts with the private construction industry on behalf of its clients. This put the PSA in a monopoly position, and meant that client departments often had little control over their own estate management. In 1981 the recently elected Conservative government ruled that 70% of work should be contracted out to private consultants, with

450-445: The committee was "contrary to government policy". These problems, combined with the government's intention to pursue a programme of privatisation of public organisations, led in 1988 to the PSA being put on a commercial footing, and obliged to bid for project work in open competition with the private construction industry. In 1990, The Property Services Agency and Crown Suppliers Act paved the way for privatisation. Then on 1 April 1990

480-464: The conference centre was drawn up in 1975. The centre as eventually built was designed by Powell Moya & Partners and constructed by Bovis Construction with work starting in 1981; it was opened by Queen Elizabeth II in 1986. The centre is owned by HM Government and its operation is conducted by an executive agency of the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government . It has 32 versatile "empty box" style rooms which are suitable for

510-515: The government's civil estate, including government offices and establishments all over the United Kingdom as well as the diplomatic estate abroad. It managed Ministry of Defence property on its behalf, both at home and overseas. Within the agency was PSA Supplies, which provided furniture, transport and other services, and operated on a trading fund basis. The clients it served were mainly government departments, but it had certain other clients,

540-504: The largely autonomous Property Services Agency (PSA). Subsequent reorganisation of PSA into Property Holdings was followed by abolition in 1996 when individual government departments took on responsibility for managing their own estate portfolios. The tradition of building specific structures for military or governmental use began to break down at the time of the First World War , when the unprecedented need for armaments prompted

570-635: The military sites and land operated by the Ministry of Defence . In 2018 a new centralised property management agency was set up, the Government Property Agency . The headquarters of the PSA were in Croydon , Greater London , occupying space in several 1960s office blocks including the Whitgift Centre , Lunar House and Apollo House . The PSA also had offices in central London, and a regional network of offices throughout

600-604: The military, archaeological or architectural links. The Ministry of Works descended from a long line of offices with responsibilities for managing royal and then governmental property. These are summarised below. Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre The Queen Elizabeth II Centre is a government-owned conference facility located in the City of Westminster , London , close to the Houses of Parliament , Westminster Abbey , Central Hall Westminster and Parliament Square . it

630-678: The most important of which was the Post Office, for which it provided services on repayment. In 1976, PSA Supplies was rebranded as The Crown Suppliers (TCS), becoming a self-funding business under the auspices of the PSA. In 1977 the staff of the agency was about 50,000, of whom about 30,000 were industrial workers, including about 7,000 locally engaged staff overseas. Of the 20,000 non-industrials, more than half were specialist staff—architects, civil, mechanical and electrical engineers, quantity surveyors, building surveyors, estate surveyors, technicians and drawing office staff. The agency undertook all types of construction work—from houses and barracks for

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660-567: The peacetime of the 1920s, guided by the Tudor Walters Committee report of 1919 and the Housing and Town Planning Act 1919 . Their styling owed much to the English garden suburb tradition (seen at Bournville , Letchworth , Saltaire , Port Sunlight and Welwyn Garden City ) and garden areas and front boundaries were generally more varied than on contemporary estates within military bases where state ownership endured over

690-466: The rapid construction of factories in English locations where a skilled workforce was not easily recruited. The department originally derived from the Office of Works (the King's Works) responsible only for royal properties (1378–1832) which became the Office of Woods, Forest, Land Revenues and Works (1832–1852). The Office of Works was founded in 1851 and became the Ministry of Works in 1940. This became

720-558: The regional offices were Area Works Offices, and then at a further sub-level operated the District Works Offices (DWOs). The main function of the DWOs was to carry out maintenance and small building projects. The DWOs were mostly situated in urban centres where there were a number of government buildings to maintain, or on military installations. The Chief Executive of the PSA had the status of Second Permanent Secretary in

750-743: The required factories and depots. Examples included the Well Hall garden suburb south of the Royal Arsenal , Woolwich (between Eltham and Shooters Hill ), Aeroville near the Grahame-White aeroplane factory at Hendon , and the Roe Green estate at Stag Lane in the London Borough of Brent . Considering the pace of their construction, these estates were surprisingly picturesque and were subsequently considered superior in scenic terms to many estates of municipal housing that followed in

780-784: The services provided by the Directorate of Works (Air) (DW(AIR)) for the RAF. The purpose of the Directorates was to set policy and draft the technical standards and specifications to be used in building works. The headquarters organisation also had direct control of flagship construction projects such as the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre in London. Also located in Croydon was the PSA's central facility for training architectural and engineering draughtsmen,

810-412: Was decided that there would be an open space on the southern edge of the site by Broad Sanctuary, and an architectural competition for a conference hall and government offices was held in 1961. The competition was won by William Whitfield , but the scheme was not executed due to the plans for redeveloping Whitehall drawn up by Leslie Martin in 1965. The site remained in limbo until a feasibility study for

840-487: Was occupied by the Westminster Hospital , built by W & H W Inwood from 1831 to 1834, and expanded later that century and again in 1924. The previous buildings became surplus to requirements in 1950 and were demolished; designs were drawn up by Thomas S. Tait for building a new Colonial Office on the site; however only the foundations had been built by the time progress was halted in 1952. In 1958, it

870-578: Was opened by Queen Elizabeth II in 1986 and can host conferences and exhibitions for up to 1,300 delegates. The site now occupied by the Queen Elizabeth II Centre was previously occupied by several buildings. At the northern end of the site were the headquarters of the Stationery Office , which had originally been the "Parliamentary Mews" built in 1825 by Decimus Burton and converted from 1853 to 1855. The southern side

900-509: Was renamed the Ministry of Public Building and Works , and acquired the extra responsibility of monitoring the building industry as well as taking over the works departments from the War Office , Air Ministry and Admiralty . The chief architect of the ministry from 1951 to 1970 was Eric Bedford. In 1970 the ministry was absorbed into the Department of the Environment (DoE), although from 1972 most former works functions were transferred to

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