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by Tom Stokes
The development of managed Workspace centres should be the responsibility of the private sector. At the Business Centre Association (BCA), we believe that both business centre operators and local authorities would benefit from working closer together in public-private partnerships. So, early this year the BCA will present the government with the flexible voucher scheme.
Space solution
The scheme has three benefits:
•It provides a solution to the rising number of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) that do not have flexible workspace in which to grow.
•It removes from the government the financial burden of developing flexible workspace.
•It helps local authorities to bring up to standard around 300 local authority buildings that offer managed workspace.
Many local authorities claim they develop centres in response to market failures. We disagree. We think local authority centres actually cause market failure in the first place. Throughout mainland Europe, it is recognised that the public sector offers space to start-ups and new businesses at well below what is accepted as a reasonable market value.
The problem worsens as several of such companies stay for much longer periods of time than these publicly financed facilities were designed for. Therefore, these buildings do not fulfil the task for which they were originally intended: to support a flow of new businesses.
Rather than the public sector managing and developing business centres to meet demand, BCA members could provide such space for start-up and growing companies through the voucher scheme. SMEs would be entitled to receive BCA-accredited office or workspace accommodation — of which there are more than 850 in the UK — for an initial one-year period at no cost and at a reduced rate for a further two years.
The vouchers would be funded either through profit-share management agreements between local authorities and private sector operators, or from the sale of local authority-run business centres.
This is in line with the government's pre-Budget report aim to cut costs and raise money from its property estate.
The public sector would still retain a role in the flexible workspace industry by providing support through organisations such as Business Link. For us, the benefits seem clear. We hope that the government agrees — both the incumbent and the next.
This article was printed in Property Week 22.01.2010