The Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) is wasting millions of pounds on lavish offices at some of the best addresses in London.

A damning report by the watchdog on public spending reveals that £40 million a year of taxpayers’ money is being spent to house its 5,000 staff.

Half the offices in London are in the expensive postcodes SW1 and W1. One office for six people costs £180,000 a year. Most offices outside London are too big.

The Commons Committee of Public Accounts (PAC) adds that different bodies could share facilities, but there is no sign of joined-up government.

The DCMS – headed by Tessa Jowell, the Culture Secretary – and 24 sponsored bodies occupy 95 offices in England. They include the UK Film Council, the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts, the National Lottery Commission and the Football Licensing Authority. The rent comes to more than £20 million a year, plus service charges and security.

The report says: “Some of the offices in London are at prestigious addresses – for example, the department’s main building in Trafalgar Square, SW1, and Arts Council England in Great Peter Street, SW1 . . . We were astonished to find that the FLA [which licenses football stadiums for health and safety compliance] was paying £180,000 a year to house six permanent staff and provide meeting facilities in Cavendish Square, W1.”

Edward Leigh, MP, the PAC chairman, said: “The DCMS is remarkably casual in its approach. The department and 24 organisations covered by our report are all making their own decisions, however costly and inefficient the consequences.”

He added: “The DCMS must exercise leadership. It must set standards, benchmark accommodation costs and use between organisations . . . and hold organisations to account.”

The report found “25 organisations acting independently with no effective leadership”. Most of the office space is in London, although many of the organisations have national responsibilities.

In London the average cost per person is £10,000, compared with less than £4,500 in Yorkshire and the Humber. Several organisations have offices in each English region, often occupying separate offices in the same towns, the report says. In Newcastle upon Tyne rents per square metre for the four organisations based there – including Arts Council England – range from £59 to £240.

Greg Clark, the Conservative MP on the PAC, was particularly shocked to find that the National Heritage Memorial Fund – which donates charitable funds to good causes from eight offices – was spending a ludicrous amount “giving people staterooms rather than offices”. Its head office, next to Sloane Square, cost £1.8 million in 2004-05.

A department spokeswoman, thanking the PAC for its report, said: “We will respond formally in due course.”

Best addresses

— The London offices of DCMS

— National Lottery Commission

— Football Licensing Authority

— UK Film Council

— Arts Council of England

£1.8m - What the National Heritage Memorial Fund pays for just one of its eight offices

Source: PAC

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