Minister encourages other councils to follow Hammersmith and Fulham lead and publish assets
Friday August 5, 2011
The first local authority in Britain to publish a list of all its assets online has welcomed Eric Pickles’ call for other councils to follow suit.
Hammersmith & Fulham Council, the most transparent local authority in the country, published its asset register for all to see in June 2010, over a year before the communities secretary suggested that it should become common practice. The beacon council, which was also the first in Britain to publish details online on its spending, is currently selling under-used assets in order to protect front-line services as a result of the national debt crisis. It decided to publish its asset register as another way to ensure that residents could scrutinise its performance and hold it to account.
Encouraging other local authorities to show a similar level of openness, Eric Pickles said: “I want the public sector to take a good hard look at what they own. By cataloguing each and every asset, councils can help the government find innovative new ways to utilise them, improve local services, keep council running costs down and save taxpayers' money.
“We need to know, now more than ever, exactly what assets are publicly owned. The general public probably have no idea of the sheer scale and scope of property and land on the public sector's books.”
Cllr Harry Phibbs, H&F Council’s Cabinet Member for Community Engagement, said: “Publishing the asset register was common sense for Hammersmith & Fulham Council and I am pleased that Eric Pickles believes that other local authorities should follow our lead. We want our residents to be a critical eye on how we are performing and the best way that can happen is if we are transparent about the assets we have and how we do our business.
“By making our asset register accessible, we are asking residents to scrutinise the properties that we own, suggesting which ones should be sold to save money, which ones should be protected and which ones should be put to better use.”
H&F Council, last year’s Local Government Chronicle Council of the Year, is selling eight properties to reduce its historic £122 million debt which is currently costing taxpayers £4.3million a year in interest payments to the banks. Residents have told the council that they prefer this approach to the widespread service cutting that many other councils have embarked upon.
The full asset register can be viewed via this link.
