Ministers have dusted down plans bequeathed by the former deputy prime minister, Michael Heseltine, to sell off the valuable freehold site. It includes an ornamental lake, a market garden and a 28 acre farm. They have decided to seek a private buyer through the Public Finance Initiative to pay for the creation of a policy centre in Admiralty Arch, London. Ministers have decided to keep a Civil Service training presence at Sunningdale but expect the site to be shared with the private sector. It has 14 buildings and seven residences dating back to Victorian and Edwardian times.
The decision follows the publication yesterday of the white paper Modernising Government, which commits the Government to an ambitious programme to take Whitehall into the next century, but limits the amount of cash available to undertake it. It includes a commitment to deliver all public services electronically by 2008, and the promise that Whitehall will offer public services 24 hours a day seven days a week.
The specific commitments include a 24-hour nationwide NHS helpline - NHS Direct - from the end of next year, a 24-hour, seven-day-a-week national job search service from 2001, and a national grid for learning from 2002. Ministers promise from 2002 all citizens will be able to submit tax returns, book driving tests, register for VAT, and get a training or student loan on the Internet. Electronic signatures through smart cards will have the same force in law as paper signatures.
From the end of this year academics will be able to do all their research on-line to the Public Record Office, and all newly created public records will be electronically stored from 2004.
Civil servants and ministers are to be retrained, with ministers sent on training courses on how to introduce and implement policy. 'Learning laboratories' are to be set up for civil servants. Some £230 million will be put aside to find ways of delivering public services. The public will be consulted on how to improve services through the People's Panel, the Race Relations Forum, Listening to Women and Listening to Older People exercises.
Performance pay will be extended for Whitehall's 500,000 civil servants, and ministers promise that 35 per cent of senior Whitehall jobs - double the present number - will be held by women by 2004 and the percentage of civil servants from ethnic minorities will be doubled to 3.2 per cent at the same time.
