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Almost a hundred intelligence officials have been forced out of their regular offices on Whitehall after losing a bitter turf war when crumbling concrete was found in the building’s roof.
The porous and potentially dangerous material was identified in the Cabinet Office headquarters last autumn, triggering the evacuation of some civil servants working on the fourth floor of 70 Whitehall in order for construction works to take place.
A crisis around reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete — or Raac — erupted last summer, forcing more than 100 school sites at risk of collapse to be closed just days before the start of the academic year.
The problem prompted a hunt across government departments to identify other public and private buildings that contain the material.
Raac was found in the Cabinet Office, forcing scores of officials in the National Security Secretariat to leave their desks and move to secure office space elsewhere in the building and other premises, according to several people familiar with the situation.
The National Security Secretariat helps develop foreign and defence policy across government and advises the National Security Council, a forum for strategic discussions about security that is chaired by the prime minister.
The decision about who was relocated — and to where — was the subject of terse wrangling and sparked resentment among the officials affected, one of the people told the Financial Times.
“There was a typically passive-aggressive fight over who was going to be moved out. It created a very unhappy group,” the Whitehall insider said.
The situation had caused “administrative chaos” and “difficulties” for those affected, they added, particularly those forced to move furthest from the physical locus of power around the prime minister.
“You want to end up in 10 Downing Street and if you can’t do that, it’s got to be 70 Whitehall [the building next door]. It’s genuinely important for national security types,” the person said.
They added that some officials had “squeezed and doubled up on desk space elsewhere in the building, while others were moved right down the street towards parliament, which is like being in [political] Siberia”.
Another official complained that building works to fix the situation did not begin immediately.
National Security Secretariat officials, often credited by colleagues as some of the most dedicated on Whitehall, typically need to be based in the office more than other civil servants because of the sensitive nature of their work and the need to maintain secure IT systems.
While the matter has left some staff disgruntled, it has not impinged on the operations of the secretariat or affected national security, officials insisted.
The Office of Government Property, which manages the government estate, first sent out correspondence to mandarins responsible for state-managed buildings in 2019 and then again in 2022, signposting guidance on Raac.
Last year, a working group was set up with the aim of understanding the potential risk of Raac and detecting its presence across the government estate.
Where the material has been identified, departments have acted in line with recommendations from the Institution of Structural Engineers, a professional body.
Raac is a lightweight alternative to traditional reinforced concrete which was used mainly in the 1960s and 1980s to make roof planks and walls, but its flaws — including vulnerability to seepage — have since been well documented.
The material found in the roof of 70 Whitehall was the only instance of Raac identified across the government estate in the heart of Westminster, according to officials.
They said the building works were nearing completion and insisted that office space elsewhere in the premises was operating normally.
Alex Thomas, programme director at the Institute for Government think-tank, said building repairs on Whitehall were bound to provoke “court intrigue”, but stressed the state of departmental premises in the heart of Westminster was far better than other civil servants’ places of work.
“The most difficult and biggest problems around the government estate — its condition and maintenance — affects courts and prisons. In the wider public sector it’s hospitals and schools,” he said.
The Cabinet Office declined to comment.
Ellesheva Kissin is a reporter at Banking Risk and Regulation, a service from FT Specialist
