2,500 chairs and 1,600 desks... the great furniture giveaway

Officials employed by the newly rebranded Department for Education are relocating from their current headquarters in Moorfoot, Sheffield, to new offices in St Paul's Place, just a few minutes walk away.

The old building had contained serviceable fixtures and fittings for more than 2,000 staff, but none of the equipment has been taken in the move, managers ordering expensive new equipment instead.

At first, it was thought most of the furniture from the Moorfoot building would end up on a landfill site, but the Yorkshire Post discovered it was being stored in a huge warehouse after a recycling firm was called in.

Most of the items, which include desks, chairs, filing cabinets, cupboards, meeting tables and canteen furniture, will not now be dumped but instead sent to Kenya by a Kent-based charity to be used in schools.

Last night, critics of Government waste attacked the Department for Education and said the news would be poorly received in Sheffield, which lost out on 105m in funding after Thursday's treasury announcements.

A Yorkshire spokesman for the TaxPayers' Alliance, Andrew Allison, said people would be disgusted to hear the furniture had been discarded and horrified to learn that new fittings had then been bought in their place.

He added: "It makes you wonder if some people in the public sector are ever going to get it. This is a complete waste of money at a time when we are talking about protecting front line services.

"Saving money on projects like these, not wasting hundreds of thousands of pounds on them, is one of the ways we can protect services."

It is not known exactly how much the goods from the Moorfoot offices would fetch if sold on the open market, but experts said yesterday the price would easily top six figures.

The equipment was cleared by L&TA Office Furniture Recycling, for whom spokesman Terry Askew said: "There are 2,500 chairs, 1,600 desks and 1,000 filing cabinets. It will probably amount to about 400 tonnes of furniture.

"When I heard how much there was I got in contact with the Kenya Aid Foundation, which will send a lot of it to Africa."

A spokesman for the Department of Education said: "This move will save money. Moorfoot, our old office in Sheffield, was too big for our needs and was not suitable for the flexible working environment we have introduced at St Paul's Place.

"For example, our old desks would not fit into our new office where we are sharing seven desks among 10 members of staff in order to save costs.

"Some of our old furniture which had no commercial value is being recycled and sent to a charity in Africa and we support this."

The Moorfoot building originally opened in 1981 and was purpose-built to house the Government's Manpower Services Commission.

Sheffield Council began negotiations with civil servants in early 2008 after the then Department for Children, Schools and Families said it wanted new premises for its staff in Sheffield.

The council agreed to buy the building from the Government and initially planned to demolish it to make way for a new business district. But the plan stalled when private cash dried up in the recession.

Since then the council has been left with a headache over what to do with the massive block when it was cleared by the Government. Earlier this year it was announced that 270 council staff would move in on a "temporary basis".

Yesterday a Sheffield Council spokesman said it was thought the authority would move in used furniture for those staff."

Equipment 'will be put to good use'

Most of the furniture from the Department for Education will be shipped to Kenya where the Kenya Aid Foundation, based in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, will distribute it.

Charity worker Samantha Andrew said those who received the chairs, desks and cupboards would make good use of them.

She added: "When we first started we were donated furniture which wasn't up to scratch, so when I walked into this warehouse and saw what was available I was absolutely delighted and amazed."