The Home Office has disposed of four buildings in central London, after adopting flexible working practices which allowed an extra 650 people to work in its Marsham Street headquarters.

Over the last 20 months, the Home Office has carried out a review of working practices and introduced measures such as hot-desking across its central London estate. As a result it has now been able to dispose of four buildings. The review increased the number of people working in its Marsham Street building, which has 3,800 workstations, by nearly 20 per cent.

Tony Edwards, head of Home Office general property, said: “By carefully researching the way the organisation worked, coming up with a tailored business-led change programme and then working with business units to implement it, we have delivered real and significant savings across our central London estate.”

Andrew Mawson, managing director of Advanced Workplace Associates (AWA), which helped the Home Office to carry out the review, said: “If this model was rolled throughout central and local government, the savings would be immense.”

Staff at HM Treasury are also investigating how its headquarters on Horse Guards Road can be used more effectively, possibly by sub-letting space to other departments.

Up to 500 staff could move into the building after the Spending Review, reports the Daily Telegraph.

A spokesperson for the department  said: “The Treasury is committed to increasing its efficiency to save money for the taxpayer. One of the ways we are looking to achieve this is by replanning our working environment to free up space in our building that other public sector organisations could use."