Chancellor Alistair Darling’s hopes of shaving £5bn from public spending by 2011 may quickly run into difficulties, a Gazette investigation of efficiency plans at HM Court Service (HMCS) suggests.

In his Pre-Budget Report (PBR) on Monday, Darling said he expects savings from ‘more efficient public sector management of property assets’. Lord Carter of Coles has been tasked with finding savings among public sector property holdings – worth around £370bn – including from the justice property book.

However the Gazette has discovered that HMCS has been trying without success to sell St Dunstan’s, its prime-location Commercial Court property on Fetter Lane in London, since September 2007.

According to a reply to a Freedom of Information Act request, the property was ‘under offer’ in September last year. HMCS refused to reveal the value of the offer, citing commercial confidentiality. This week it revealed that the property remains unsold. ‘Discussions, if any, about this matter are commercially confidential,’ it said.

The Commercial Court is due to move into its new home in the rebuilt Rolls Building on Fetter Lane in 2010, but HMCS cannot now name a ‘planned, fixed date’ for moving out of St Dunstan’s, a spokesman said. As to selling the property, he said: ‘HMCS is reviewing all its options about the future of the building in light of the planned move of the Commercial Court.’

The PBR also says that HMCS ‘plans to make over £140m of savings through modernising processes and making use of new technology’. This includes ‘significant improvements’ in case management, ‘increased electronic links with other agencies and better access to services’.

However, the Gazette understands that electronic filing and document management (EFDM) plans are stalled, a national EFDM system might cost £80m and courts case-management requires upgrading. In April this year, Lord Phillips, then Lord Chief Justice, identified the court estate as ‘an area of ever-growing concern because of a history of under-investment and a growing [£200m] maintenance backlog’ (see [2008] Gazette, 3 April, 1).