E-documents can make government offices smaller

Media reports indicate that the Finance Minister, Lindsay Tanner has said that new federal government offices will be reduced from around 25 square metres per person to 16 square metres. In January I suggested that as most paper is replaced with computer storage in new offices and the computer storage is located off site, the size of offices should be able to be reduced down to 8 m² per person. The m² allocation for Australian Government offices therefore look generous.

The UK Government report "Improving the efficiency of central government's office property" (28 November 2007) proposed 12 m² per person. It should be noted that this is not the actual space each office worker gets, but is calculated from the Net Internal Area (the area within a building measured to the internal surface of the perimeter walls at each floor level), not just the floor space of individual offices. For comparison, The Pentagon was designed for 11.6 m² per person.