Catalogue description Records created or inherited by the Property Services Agency

In May 1972 it was announced that a new Property Services Agency (PSA) was to be set up within the Department of the Environment to provide other government departments with property management services, building construction and maintenance and appropriate supplies. The agency was to be a 'hived off' accountable unit within the department with its own trading fund.

It started operations on 1 September 1972 and was headed by a Chief Executive of Permanent Secretary status reporting directly to the Secretary of State for the Environment. Inclusion within the department was designed to ensure that government practice as a builder and developer remained in accord with national policies of conservation and improvement of the environment.

The new organisation was designed to tighten up property management to ensure the best possible use of land and to that end the Defence Lands organisation of the Ministry of Defence was incorporated into the agency.

The agency also had a network of regional offices, known as the United Kingdom Territorial Organisation (UKTO).

In 1976 the Property Services Agency (PSA) Supplies Division was established as a trading fund. It was renamed The Crown Suppliers (TCS) in 1984. Government departments were fully 'untied' from TCS in 1987 and could shop around for goods and services. The intention to privatise TCS was formally announced in February 1988.

PSA was restructured in April 1990 when it was grouped within a new organisation, Property Holdings, which was to be an organisational unit within the Department of the Environment.

Property Holdings took over the portfolio management (buying and selling) of the Civil Estate from PSA. PSA continued as PSA Services, assuming financial responsibility for the maintenance of central government property.

Property Holdings was abolished in 1995 and its functions were continued by individual government departments.

An executive agency of the Cabinet Office, the Property Advisers to the Civil Estate (PACE), was established in 1996 to provide central property guidance to government departments and to supply details of a range of property-related client services.