Property Services Agency

The Property Services Agency (PSA) was an agency of the United Kingdom government, in existence from 1972 to 1993. Its role was to “provide, manage, maintain, and furnish the property used by the government, including defence establishments, offices, courts, research laboratories, training centres and land”.

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 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, 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 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 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 the PSA still retaining overall control.

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