Government Property – A Puzzle

We attended the Government Property Conference where Francis Maude was the keynote speaker.  He had an impressive list of achievements by the government in relation to selling property and using the government estate more efficiently.  Delegates were asked to be more proactive in identifying sites that were surplus to requirements but the reward for doing so is simply to see that property put up for sale if the government agrees.  Procurement rules mean that there can be no special favours for investing time and money is working up an idea for a site. The government idea seems to be that private enterprise should act as a free ideas provider (and in some cases this will happen) but they need to provide a more tangible motivation if they really want the private sector involved.