To be the last speaker on the agenda is always a daunting task. Will there be anyone left to hear you speak? In John Dee's case, he need not have worried, as 75% of the delegates had remained 15th October at the Closing Session of the CoreNet Global Summit here to learn more about how he had managed to shift the conservative views of a British 'institution'.

The publicly funded British Broadcasting Commission (BBC) made the decision in 1997 that it had to change the way it managed its assets. It had 550 properties that were utilised by single occupants and up to 13 acres accommodating 6,000 people.

"Our portfolio was aged, under-funded, uncared for, buildings were riddled with asbestos, totally inappropriate for the digital age, offices were allocated by status, not need, there were long corridors, low interaction and work was conducted behind closed doors. It had to change, but how?"

Greg Dyke, Director General BBC, summed up the challenge befalling the property department in 1997 -

"There is no doubt that people in creative organisations work better in exciting environments, and some of our environments are by anybody's standards, not exciting"

The vision to determine "what will the BBC be in 2020" was formed on the basis of responding to the challenge. It covered-

Audience; Technology; Flexibility; Talent; Cost; Design Excellence

The ambitious project was to transform the existing environment so that it would be visible, accessible, open and light, space allocated, a loose fit and egalitarian.

The way forward was clear - a tailored made solution with a private sector partner, with a 50-50 say.

The traditional approach : their profit is our cost
Partnership approach : innovative solutions to reduce
our cost and to maintain or
improve their margins.

This became the cornerstone of five years of planning and implementation that has resulted in a 30-year marriage with Land Securities Trillium.

The 'novel features' of the arrangements included;

• Substantial value sharing between the public-private sector partnership
  
• Staggered approach to incentives
  
• Agreed formula that commits to a pricing process
  
• Complicated legal agreements
  

The only downside so far has been not pre-empting every legal eventuality such as, how to deal with charity requests to utilise the public areas, or internal filming requests and how this affects insurance cover? How are these handled since they were never written into the contract? "We are still working through these"

"We have been very pleased with this process as the money we save on property by having outsourced can be funnelled into creative programming for the BBC".