DESKS littered with family photos will be a thing of the past for Derby City Council's 1,800 staff spread across city offices.

Instead, the future heralds working from home and sharing desks.

That is because the authority is about the embark on one of its biggest-ever changes in working practices.

It will involve spending £20m on refurbishing the council's flaking headquarters – the Council House, in Corporation Street – clearing a backlog of maintenance work on the authority's buildings around the city totalling £14m, selling off office space in St Mary's Gate and buying separate space elsewhere in the city.

But the practicalities of what that means for staff is more extreme.

Internal walls in the Council House will be ripped down and its maze of dated, institution-like corridors opened up.

The warren of small offices, each with its individual printer, fridge, kettle, water-cooler and vacant desks ,will be transformed into large, open-plan rooms where staff will share equipment.

Employees' time will be monitored closely so, where it makes sense, they may work from home to allow them to go straight to meetings later in the day. This will cut down on unnecessary travel and allowing desk space to be shared.

Gordon Stirling, head of change management, performance and research at the council, said: "It is about being flexible in the way we work, which will also allow us to adapt in the future as the demands on the council change.

"It will involve a change in culture in the way people work and we will be supporting staff through that change."

This sort of planning and the change in layout means the Council House will be able to accommodate 30% more staff.

It will also see the current 550 desks increased to 780 but, through sharing and changing the way they work, the Council House will be able to accommodate at least 1,014 staff.

That, in turn, will enable the authority to sell off costly, ageing buildings elsewhere in the city, such as Middleton House, in St Mary's Gate, where the children and young people's services departments is currently located.

That will save on repair and maintenance bills of around £3m alone.

New windows, heating systems and insulation will also enable the Council House to be more energy-efficient – saving a further £1m.

To accommodate the staff who will not be able to fit into the Council House, the authority plans to buy other city centre office space.

Councillor Mike Carr, cabinet member for direct and internal services, said: "We have not decided where the space will be but we will have to look at that in the coming months."

While the costs seem extreme, the council is confident the savings will add up.

The average cost of a desk space, taking into account heating, electricity, lighting and other overheads, is £6,422 per year and, by sharing desks the council said it could save a further £1.5m a year.

Andy Elliott, change manager for the New Ways of Working project overseeing the alterations, said: "Around 60% of our staff don't have the need to have a fixed desk, while about 40%, such as data entry workers, do need their own desk.

"By sharing desk space and changing the way staff work, it will be able to make the best use of the space in the building."

Benefits for staff will be shared meeting rooms, small areas to eat lunch and proper kitchen facilities.

The changes have received an initial welcome from staff.

Claire Foley, who works as a designer in constitutional services, said: "It will be good to have a proper space to make drinks.

"At the moment, we have to get water from the bathrooms to fill the kettle to make a drink in the corner of the office."

The public will get a bigger and better customers services point at the Council House and better access for disabled visitors.

But with change comes disruption.

The council wants to start work in spring next year.

The first phase will include putting around 200 staff from one wing of the Council House into temporary accommodation, yet to be chosen, elsewhere in the city.

Refurbishment of the wing could take about six months, after which about 350 to 400 staff from elsewhere in the Council House will be moved into the finished wing and the process of refurbishment will start again.

With five phases of work, the process could take three years to complete.

But residents are being reassured that the last phase to be changed will be the Derby Direct and that the main reception will continue to operate while its replacement is created, so customers are not affected.