Case Study: Replacing a 20-year old government property register in 5 months

How CDS delivered Insight - a modern, bespoke property data platform - for the Office of Government Property, from contract award to production in five months.

About the Client

The Office of Government Property (OGP), part of the Cabinet Office, is responsible for the strategic management of the entire central government property estate across England. It is not a single organisation managing its own buildings. It is a central function overseeing property data from approximately 1,200 public sector organisations, including government departments, local authorities, NHS bodies, and defence.

OGP enables government to make informed decisions about the public estate: where to sell property to raise capital, where to renegotiate leases, and how to optimise the cost and utilisation of publicly owned and leased buildings. Its primary accountability mechanism is the annual State of the Estate Report, delivered to Parliament.

A relationship built over two decades

CDS has worked with OGP and its predecessors since 2005 - over 20 years. We built and maintained EPIMS (the Electronic Property Information and Mapping Service), the central government property register that preceded Insight. That relationship, and the depth of domain knowledge it produced, is what made the Insight project possible.

After two successive failed procurements by off-the-shelf solution providers, OGP turned to CDS as the only supplier with the domain knowledge to deliver a replacement at pace. The Insight contract was awarded in October 2024, with a five-month window to production.

1998 Domain expertise first established in government property data management

2005 CDS builds and takes on management of EPIMS

Oct 2024 InSite contract awarded

Mar 2025 InSite live in production

Challenges

Legacy technology, failed procurements and parliamentary scrutiny

By 2024, EPIMS was running on 20-year-old technology that could not be aligned to modern government standards, could not support the Government Property Data Standard, and was increasingly difficult to maintain. The context for replacement was extraordinary.

Two failed procurements

Two successive off-the-shelf property management solutions won contracts on price and failed to delivery. OGP was under ministerial pressure to demonstrate delivery quickly.

Legacy data model

EPIMS was built in 2005 and never fundamentally re-architected. Its complex data model made analysis difficult and could not be retrofitted to the Government Property Data Standard.

Objectives

OGP needed a modern, GDS-compliant central property register that could replace EPIMS at pace, and demonstrate delivery to Parliament. It needed to support strategic property management for 1,200 organisations and enable OGP's own analysts to access clean, standards-aligned data without supplier dependency.

The Solution

InSite: A bespoke platform built in five months

CDS proposed and delivered a group-up bespoke application built to GDS development standards and aligned to the Government Property Data Standard. The key differentiator was not price, but knowledge and speed. 20 years of domain expertise meant that a discovery phase that would normally take months, was completed in days. 

Three data input channels: UI for smaller organisations, API integration for those with their own systems and bulk spreadsheet import for large portfolios - each maintaining data integrity against the Government Property Data Standard. 

Modern API-first architecture: Build from the ground up to GDS standards with a clean data model accessible through OGP's own BI and analytics tooling - reducing dependency on CDS for every analytical output.

Strategic reporting capability: Structured data outputs for the State of the Estate Report to Parliament, supporting OGP's disposal, sustainability and asset management reporting requirements.

Outcomes

Delivered on time, with  national consequence

InSite went live in March 2025 - five months after contract award. OGP was able to demonstrate delivery to the Public Accounts Committee and Parliament, ending a period of significant political and operational pressure. 

• Production-ready in five months - from contract award in October 2024, to go live in March 205
• 1.200 public sector organisations now submitting property data through a modern, standards-aligned platform
• OGP able to report delivery to the PAC, closing the chapter on two failed procurements
• ~£5bn in government asset realisation facilitated over the lifetime of the EPIMS and InSite relationship
• First central government property register aligned to the Government Property Data Standard
• Ongoing managed service and development relationship - CDS continues as OGP's strategic technology partner

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