Midlands councils 'could save £700m'

Source: LGC

The potential cashable savings from West Midlands’ councils property assets were outlined at a Local Government Association annual conference fringe meeting.

The six councils examined in the study - Staffordshire CC, Bromsgrove DC, Redditch BC, Tamworth BC, Walsall MBC and Coventry City Council - could generate £45m worth of revenue and £144m capital savings, it showed.

The exercise, which is designed as a regional pilot for the asset management strand of the Treasury’s Operational Efficiency Programme (OEP), also identified scope for 14,000 tonnes of carbon emissions to be saved.

“If you ran the programme across the West Midlands, you could release £700m: £170m of revenue savings and £530m of capital,” said Andrew Rawson, director of housing and property for 4ps, which carried out the study with the Improvement & Efficiency West Midlands regional partnership.

Mr Rawson said it was difficult to roll out the results nationally because of the varying nature of the UK regions’ property markets.

But he said generating the estimated £700m savings would require approximately £90m of up-front investment.

He said the survey had identified considerable scope for securing savings via greater sharing of premises, both between councils and across the wider public sector.

Mr Rawson also said efficiencies could be gained by the region’s local authorities all using a common property management system, known as PIMS, which is now mandatory across central government.

Cllr Mark Winnington (Con), Staffordshire’s cabinet member responsible for property, said: “The work done in the West Midlands shines a light on the benefits that can be achieved by proactive and collaborative strategic management of property.”

Lord Carter of Coles’ asset management report for the OEP, published alongside the Budget, estimated that the entire public sector estate could save up to £5bn per annum in running costs and release £20bn of capital receipts within the next 10 years.