Chancellor Rishi Sunak visited Darlington after almost a week of negative headlines to identify location of Treasury campus. Mr Sunak has been at the centre of unwanted headlines for much of the last week over his wife’s non-dom status and his posession of a US residence green card.
The Chancellor’s visit to Darlington came after he requested an investigation into his conduct by Boris Johnson’s independent adviser on ministerial interests Lord Geidt, insisting that he was confident he had acted appropriately at all times. While in the town, he revealed that a site off the A167 at Brunswick is the preferred location for the Treasury’s Darlington campus, though it is also considering a site at Central Park.
Staff are currently using Bishopsgate House as an interim office and will move into a longer-term temporary office in Feethams House later this year ahead of the new permanent site being ready. The announcement comes as the recruitment drive hits a major milestone with over more than Treasury members now in post.
Mr Sunak said: “It’s fantastic that so many talented people here in the North East and beyond have taken up the opportunity to work in the heart of government in Darlington with more than 110 Treasury staff now in post. I am delighted that we are in the final stages of finding a permanent site for our new campus which is creating jobs for local people, spreading opportunity and levelling up.”
The Government hopes to eventually have more than 1,100 new roles based there by 2025, which will be a mixture of new recruits and existing Treasury staff who have relocated from London.
Beth Russell, the Treasury’s director general for tax and selfare, said: “I really passionately believe having the Economic Campus in Darlington is the right thing to do for the civil service – and for the Treasury in particular which has traditionally been one of the most London-centric of government departments.
“It provides an opportunity for people who wouldn’t otherwise be able to work in the civil service to do so, bringing in a much wider range of people with different experiences and perspectives to improve our advice to ministers and the services we provide the public.”
Tees Valley mayor Ben Houchen said: “Securing the Treasury’s new Economic Campus for Darlington means local people from across Teesside, Darlington and Hartlepool can work at the heart of Government without leaving the place they love and call home.
“I am delighted more than 100 Treasury roles have now been filled and, as promised, the vast majority have been taken up by local people, proving that there’s no need to move to a big city to secure a good-quality, well-paid job in the civil service. This is only the beginning, with hundreds more upcoming jobs in the Civil Service giving local people huge opportunities to succeed.”
Alongside the Treasury, the campus will house teams from the Department for International Trade, the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, the Office for National Statistics and the Competition and Markets Authority. They will be working alongside the Department for Education, which already has a base in Darlington.