The Scottish Government

Challenge

The Scottish Government contract covers 68 buildings across Scotland, including main buildings in Edinburgh, Glasgow and Aberdeen. The estate ranges in size, age and complexity from major modern office complexes to remote small buildings across Scotland including the Highlands and Islands. In addition, the estate has many different operating environments such as a Marine Laboratory in Aberdeen, Greenhouses at SASA in Edinburgh, a Data Centre at Saughton House in Edinburgh to a pumping station in Aberdeen.

As well as the diverse portfolio of buildings, there are many other challenges associated with working with the Scottish Parliament. These include access restrictions due to many sites having asbestos and enhanced vetting procedures. Buildings are also located throughout Scotland including rural areas and Islands which often take longer for engineers to reach. And each of the buildings within the Scottish Government’s estate are also used for different purposes and therefore have different hours of use by employees and the general public, making it a challenge to plan essential services at times that cause minimum disruption.

Solution

We have worked with the Scottish Government since 2007. There are currently 170 dedicated members of Mitie staff on the Scottish Government contract including management, helpdesk, maintenance and cleaning operatives. In addition, there are approximately 45 Mitie staff actively supporting the contract daily including QHS&E, energy, waste, project management, finance, compliance, administration, HR support, payroll, IT, training, fleet management etc. Of these, our engineering team consists of 18 engineers and nine other engineering staff (managers, finance & helpdesk).

We provide a 24/7/365 dedicated service desk facility for the Scottish Government which is based in Rutherglen during working hours and Leeds out of hours. The service desk staff are familiar with the buildings and staff raising the calls. This enables us to plan and react to circa 25,000 tasks per annum across the estate.

Scottish Government have embarked on a Smarter Workplaces project during the last five years in some of their main buildings across the estate. This programme involves refurbishing areas within the buildings that remain occupied whilst trying to cause as little disruption as possible for the staff. We have managed this project from inception to handover, and with each phase, the process becomes more streamlined for all.

Outcome

Some of the achievements and innovations that we have implemented across the Scottish Parliament contract include the introduction of innovative technology, such as our MOZAIC system which collates data from each of our service lines and presents it in simple, interactive dashboards. This allows us to produce real time reports which are used to measure performance. We have used our experience on the contract to produce a five-year asset maintenance register for the Scottish Government which assists with strategy and budget planning.

We have also implemented a proactive find and fix maintenance strategy to reduce disruption, cost and inconvenience, conducted trend analysis on reactive repairs to ensure breakdowns are minimised, and implemented innovative computer aided facility management technology systems that manage the services, assets, systems and compliance

Finally, since 2012, our teams have played a pivotal role in helping the Scottish Government to achieve high standards for its estate across carbon, water and waste. In August 2016, the Scottish Government were awarded the Carbon Trust Triple Standard Award – a unique carbon status and the only government in the world to meet this standard.