New £40m Home Office base plan scrapped

Staff from the department are already based at Two Smithfield

A £40.8m scheme to build new offices for civil servants has been scrapped.

Instead, existing buildings will be used to accommodate 500 Home Office staff in Stoke-on-Trent.

Civil servants in areas such as customer service and asylum are already based in the Two Smithfield building in Hanley, after the Home Office signed a lease for 38,000 sq ft of office space in 2023.

The previous Conservative government decided to create the jobs in Stoke-on-Trent as part of a major drive to move civil servants out of London.

Home Office Minister Lord David Hanson said he was committed to further increasing the Home Office presence in the city.

"Since taking office I have held constructive discussions with local partners in the region and I look forward to building on these relationships to explore how the Home Office can provide further opportunities to Stoke-on-Trent,” he said.

Council leader Jane Ashworth welcomed news that the Home Office workforce in the city had reached 500.

The leader of the city council, Jane Ashworth, said the authority would continue to support efforts to find a permanent Home Office base, and was "so pleased to see that the Home Office has hit its target of bringing 500 new jobs to the city in such a short space of time."

She added: "We want to ensure our residents have access to good jobs with higher wages, so we are delighted that the Home Office has made this commitment to our city."

This news was gathered by the Local Democracy Reporting Service which covers councils and other public service organisations.