Even though co-location and sharing can be an effective way to support both agency and government goals, it’s not always appropriate.
Before making the decision to co-locate, agencies should assess how compatible they are.
Compatible agencies will have several of the following factors in common. They’ll:
Understanding whether these factors apply in your circumstances will mean talking to the agencies you're thinking of co-locating with. We'd recommend doing this in a workshop setting. You can use our prompt questions to guide the discussion, or we can facilitate a workshop for you.
You’ll get the most out of a workshop if:
Suggested questions to get agencies started with designing a workshop to gain an understanding of the co-locating functions compatibility to co-locate and give an indication of how the co-location could be customised to best meet the specific circumstances of the space.
The workshop should give you a good indication of whether or not co-location would work - the outcome should fall into one of three categories.
If agencies fall within the blue ‘Co-locate’ section, a fully integrated co-location solution would work well. We’d encourage you to proactively explore more integrated approaches for how you could work together to achieve your collective goals.
If agencies fall into one of the ‘Pursue’ sections, a co-location would need to be customised to best fit the circumstances.
If agencies fall within the red ‘Co-tenancy’ section, consider whether your location and space requirements could lend themselves to establishing a co-tenancy. This will mean one building search, and ensure that agencies don’t compete for the same space.