Tailoring a co-location to meet all needs

Critical concerns

These aspects are vital to any co-location plan and must be considered, agreed upon, and defined before formalising any agreement to co-locate.

Lead agency responsibilities

You can choose to adopt the lead agency's concept partially or in full. Depending on the size of the co-location, one lead agency could take responsibility for managing the project, holding the lease, owning the general workplace assets, and managing the facilities. Agencies could also split responsibilities, and potentially manage separate leases.

Defining roles and responsibilities

Common infrastructure

• Common underlying ICT infrastructure, like TeSA (technology enabled shared accommodation). Shared IT support may be required for each agency's own systems and devices.
• Common security platforms and systems such as access card systems, CCTV or alarm systems with procedures that respond to the functions at the site and reduce installation and ongoing management costs.

Asset ownership

General furniture and equipment assets are usually owned and managed by the lead agency, with exceptions for specialist assets and employees’ devices.

Look and feel

Your co-location will need a cohesive look and feel that is agency neutral, including meeting room signage and other finishes and fixtures that meet GPG design principles. For public facing services, agencies can agree to adopt the same look and feel or allow a greater level of agency customisation.

Principles for office design

Culture

Agree to ensuring a seamless, positive experience for staff and customers, during and after the transition.

Important concerns

These aspects of a co-location provide a better experience for occupants and easier ongoing maintenance and management of the facilities, and ideally should be agreed upon before signing a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU). Co-locations are able to operate without them in place, in which case they can be planned for early and introduced at a later date.

Building amenities and management

• How building amenities will be either shared or centralised. For example, reception, external conference or meeting rooms, or end-of-trip facilities.
• Whether transaction counters for public-facing services can be shared.
• Having one set of building management operational procedures and policies.
• The use of shared meeting rooms, hub spaces and kitchens, including the meeting room booking system. If these are not shared, maintenance for these areas still falls under lead agency responsibility; areas will be charged as dedicated agency space.
• access to all spaces and floors for all staff, except to any restricted access rooms that may be required.

Branding guidelines

Agencies should follow GPG branding, wayfinding and signage guidelines when they are determining branding in public facing areas, directory boards and external signage. Agency branding should be limited to directory boards.

Branding, wayfinding and signage guidelines

Ideal inclusions

The following aspects of a co-location offer potential benefits, but require more effort to implement and will cause a significant change impact. They can be implemented at any time during a co-location but are likely to be a more realistic consideration for co-locations with significant sector alignment.

• Shared fleet cars.
• Shared central functions like HR and Finance.