Key facts
The Federal Office for Buildings and Logistics (FOBL) builds and operates the properties of the civil Federal Administration, resulting in annual operating costs of over CHF 90 million. The reported operating costs have risen by more than 80% since 2017. This increase is due to the combination of the growth in the property portfolio (assumption of the portfolio of the Federal Office for Customs and Border Security and federal asylum centres) and the surge in energy prices.
The expected operating costs are shown in the real estate dispatches within the framework of credit requests for building projects. Together with the construction costs, they are thus an important factor for decision-makers when deciding to approve projects or credits.
The Swiss Federal Audit Office (SFAO) conducted an audit to determine whether the operating cost estimates are sufficiently reliable. The methods used to calculate and record the operating costs are comprehensible in the SFAO’s view. However, the FOBL does not systematically analyse target achievement. Furthermore, the recorded operating costs are not comparable. In some cases, there are large deviations, both positive and negative, between the planned and actual values. Therefore, the estimated operating costs are not sufficiently reliable.