Public sector relocation: phased around statutory service continuity, records kept retrievable for FOI and casework deadlines, chain of custody documented, screening matched to your stated requirement.
Continuum Green relocates offices, records, and workplace estates for councils, government bodies, and other public authorities across the UK. Work is documented to withstand audit, sequenced around continuous service obligations, and delivered against whatever governance and screening requirements you set.
A public sector relocation is a commercial move carrying additional obligations, and the obligations rather than the logistics are what make it different.
Services cannot stop. Citizen records must stay retrievable throughout, because a statutory deadline does not pause for a move. Spend has to be defensible to auditors and, potentially, to the public. And whoever wins the work has to have been selected through a route that stands up to challenge.
What that means in practice is documentation. Not marketing documentation, but the kind that survives an audit: what moved, when, who held it, where it went, and what happened to anything disposed of.
We plan around your requirements rather than presenting a fixed methodology. Public bodies vary widely in what they mandate, and the workable approach is to establish that at the outset instead of discovering a mismatch mid-project.
Public authorities carry obligations a private business does not, and each one places a requirement on whoever moves their estate.
| Your obligation | What it requires from a supplier |
|---|---|
| Continuity of statutory services | Phased sequencing so no service goes dark. Statutory duties and casework deadlines continue regardless of your move date. |
| Freedom of Information Act 2000 | Records must remain locatable throughout. A request arriving mid-move still carries its statutory response deadline. |
| UK GDPR and citizen data | Documented chain of custody on casework and personal records, and a written processor agreement where a supplier handles them. |
| Retention schedules | Records moved or stored against retention dates rather than disposed of on convenience. Disposal evidenced when it does occur. |
| Audit and value for money | Costs and scope traceable, with variations documented. Public spend gets examined in ways commercial spend does not. |
| Social value and environmental commitments | Reuse and donation outcomes recorded with actual figures, since these are frequently weighted in evaluation and reported afterwards. |
Our teams are trained to handle sensitive documentation, confidential casework, and public sector IT infrastructure with the full rigour your organisation demands.
We deploy high-security, lockable transit solutions with complete chain of custody documentation on every consignment. All personnel handling sensitive materials operate under strict confidentiality protocols and full background screening.
Records are usually the highest-risk element of a public sector move, more so than in the private sector, because the consequences of losing track of a file are statutory rather than commercial.
Casework, planning files, licensing records, social care files, and historic registers all carry retention obligations and, in many cases, live statutory deadlines. The move has to be sequenced so any given run of records is fully at one site or fully at the other, never scattered between the two.
Where records contain personal data, we act as a processor on your instructions and expect a written agreement setting that out under Article 28 of the UK GDPR. If a supplier does not raise this, raise it with them.
Material identified as beyond its retention period during a move is a decision for your records manager, not for us. Where you authorise disposal, it goes through certified destruction with certification issued against what was destroyed. See document storage for records held against retention dates.
Continuum Green supports your organisation’s net zero commitments with a fully carbon-conscious relocation process. We report diversion and disposal outcomes by stream to support your environmental reporting to support your sustainability obligations.
Redundant office furniture, legacy equipment, and decommissioned assets are managed through our ethical recycling and local donation programme. We route reusable assets to redeployment, donation and resale ahead of disposal, helping public sector organisations demonstrate responsible stewardship of public resources.
How you buy this work shapes what you need from a supplier, and the routes carry different documentation burdens.
Below threshold, most authorities run a quotation exercise against their own standing orders. Framework call-offs, whether through Crown Commercial Service, YPO, ESPO, NEPO or a regional consortium, use the framework’s own terms and evaluation model. Above threshold, an open procedure published on Find a Tender applies, under the Procurement Act 2023 regime.
We are not going to tell you which frameworks we sit on, because that changes and because you will verify it anyway. Ask us directly and you will get a straight answer rather than a claim on a web page.
What we will always provide for a tender or quotation: method statements and risk assessments, insurance certificates with cover levels, waste carrier registration details, references where we have permission to give them, and a clear statement of what we deliver ourselves versus what we subcontract.
Fully compliant relocation services designed around the unique obligations of public sector organisations.
Secure, fully documented transfer of case files, legal records, and citizen data in strict compliance with GDPR and data protection legislation.
Safe decommissioning, transport, and reinstallation of government networks, servers, and workstation environments with zero service interruption.
Complete removal, transport, and reinstallation of office furnishings, public reception areas, and council chamber environments.
Carefully sequenced move schedules that maintain public-facing service continuity throughout every stage of the relocation.
Responsible disposal, recycling, and community donation of redundant public sector assets in full compliance with procurement policy.
On-site rectification, heavy equipment anchoring, and hands-on support to ensure your teams are fully operational from day one.
Under the Public Services (Social Value) Act 2012, authorities must consider how procurement can improve economic, social and environmental wellbeing. A relocation is one of the easier contracts to generate measurable social value from, because the surplus it produces has obvious community uses.
The difficulty is usually evidence rather than intent. Commitments are made at tender and then reported in round numbers nobody can trace. These are the mechanisms a move actually offers and what verifiable evidence looks like for each.
| Mechanism | Outcome | Evidence you can report |
|---|---|---|
| Donation to local organisations | Serviceable furniture reaching schools, charities and community groups in your area rather than being disposed of. | Named receiving organisations, item counts and dates. |
| Redeployment within the authority | Surplus at one site meeting need at another, avoiding replacement spend from the public purse. | Movement records against the inventory, and the purchase avoided. |
| Diversion from landfill | Material recovered rather than disposed of. | Tonnage by stream with waste transfer notes, not a headline percentage. |
| Local supply chain | Spend retained in the local economy where crews and subcontractors are locally based. | Where the delivering teams and subcontractors are based, stated honestly. |
| Service continuity | Out-of-hours and phased working so residents keep access to services throughout. | Programme showing service availability across the move window. |
Two practical points worth raising early. Donation takes lead time, because recipients need furniture matching their space and rarely have storage, so a clearance booked at short notice defaults to recycling regardless of intent. And commitments are easier to evidence when the wording at tender stage describes a method rather than a number, since a promised tonnage made before anyone has surveyed the building is a figure invented for a scoring matrix.
Where surplus is being routed rather than disposed of, the detail sits on our furniture disposal and reuse page.
Being precise here matters more than sounding capable, because a claim that does not survive verification is worse than an absent one.
Personnel screening is set by you, not asserted by us. Public sector requirements range from basic identity checks through BPSS to SC clearance depending on the site and the material. Tell us your requirement at the outset and we will confirm whether we can meet it for that project. We will not imply a clearance level we do not hold.
We do not carry out construction, fit-out, or mechanical and electrical works, and we do not act as principal contractor. We do not move industrial plant or machinery requiring lifting operations.
We also do not provide records management consultancy or make retention and disposal decisions on your behalf. Those sit with your records manager, and we execute against them.
Questions we are asked most often by estates and procurement teams.
Screening is matched to your stated requirement rather than claimed in advance. Requirements vary from identity checks to BPSS to SC depending on the site and material. Tell us what you need and we will confirm whether we can meet it for your project.
Ask us directly and we will tell you. We do not list framework positions on the website because they change and because you will verify them through the framework operator regardless.
Runs are moved intact and in sequence, so a given set of files is wholly at one site or wholly at the other. That matters because an FOI request or a casework deadline arriving mid-move still carries its statutory timescale.
Through recorded reuse and donation outcomes with actual figures rather than estimates. Surplus furniture routed to schools, charities and community organisations is documented and can be reported.
Method statements, risk assessments, insurance certificates with cover levels, waste carrier registration, and a clear split of what we deliver directly versus subcontract.
Speak directly with our government relocation specialists today. We will build a fully compliant, zero-downtime transition plan tailored to your organisation's exact requirements and budget.
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