The Government will establish a specialist taskforce drawn from the public and private sectors to advise ministers on asset management, Chancellor Gordon Brown said today.
The taskforce will also explore the scope for further engagement with the private sector.
Brown’s pledge followed the publication of Sir Michael Lyons’ Toward Better Management of Public Sector Assets.
The report considers how best to deliver on the Government’s commitment to sell £30bn of public assets by 2010.
The report concludes that the Government can achieve its goal of selling the properties within the next six years, but needed to “raise its game” if it was to be sure of meeting the challenge.
Establishing a taskforce to educate Government departments on asset management was just one of nine recommendations put forward in the report.
Recommendations include more detailed planning at departmental and local government levels and active co-ordination across government, as well as more creative approaches to partnership with the private sector.
“If there is scope for the public sector to tackle asset management more energetically then there is reason to suppose that the current rate of disposals can be broadly maintained and, in some areas, even increased,” said Lyons.
Lyons said the Government had been disposing of £5bn of assets a year, with much of this in the form of public housing transferred through the right to buy or large scale voluntary transfers.
But he warned that, with receipts from housing likely to decline and a range of assets already sold, the Government’s objective would be “challenging”.
The public sector currently has assets worth about £658bn.
References: EGi News 02/12/04
