East Riding of Yorkshire Council’s strategic approach to asset management reflects the importance given to asset management by senior officers and members as well as the Council’s organisational structure. It has developed a sophisticated and comprehensive data system for monitoring its property portfolio, helping it rationalise its estate and identify opportunities to share with partners where possible.

All strategic property and land related services are now aligned into one central strategic service, Asset Strategy, which employs around 70 different professionals (including historic environment and conservation staff, surveyors, accountants, architects, highways engineers and planners). The Leader of the Council is the portfolio holder for asset management, and the deputy leader has a significant role within Asset Strategy. Asset management is therefore seen as a priority and championed by the Council’s hierarchy ensuring member support for property decisions.

The Council has developed an integrated Corporate Property Information System (CPIS), which provides data to a number of other systems including ownership, asset register, and energy and disposals databases ensuring consistent information is held on property assets. The CPIS holds both core and non-core data on every property asset the Council owns or has an interest in. Core data include size, location, ownership information, any statutory designations (for example listed, scheduled or within a conservation area) while non-core data includes more transient data such as which service is occupying a certain building. Financial information enables the Council to benchmark costs against others and take action to improve poorer performing assets. All buildings are mapped electronically so digital information from property surveys automatically updates the various databases. The CPIS system costs less than 0.5 per cent of the overall property revenue expenditure to maintain and has helped delivered capital efficiency savings of over £4 million.

As one apt example of the benefits of this integrated approach, the Council increased the capacity of its main administrative headquarters, the Grade I listed County Hall in Beverley, from 1,200 to 1,500 people through increased utilisation rates and reducing space per person to 6.5 square metres. This enabled the Council to achieve capital receipts, from the disposal of surplus accommodation, totalling more than £1.2 million, the interest from which contributed towards the £4 million capital efficiencies identified above.

• With the Leader of the Council holding the portfolio for Asset Strategy, the Council has placed asset management high on the political agenda. As such the Council has recognised its responsibility to be a good steward of assets in their ownership and has placed the management of their assets in the political and public spotlight.
• By involving the right people from a cross section of professional backgrounds, the Council has ensured that any decisions made about the future of their assets are informed, ensuring efficient management of the property portfolio.
• By investing in intelligent management systems, local authorities can make significant savings in the long term and have the ability to recognise strategic opportunities for their assets as and when they present themselves.

Source: Audit Commission, Room for Improvement Case Studies: Good Practice in Strategic Asset Management, August 2009