Why Local Authorities Need to Refresh Their Corporate Asset Strategy

Building resilient, sustainable estates that deliver for communities

Executive Summary

Refreshing your Corporate Asset Management Strategy (CAMS) is no longer a technical estate exercise or a compliance-led requirement. It is now a core leadership responsibility for anyone responsible for property, land, or the places in which public services are delivered.

For local government, land and buildings represent one of the largest concentrations of public value under direct control. Collectively, the public sector estate is worth tens of billions of pounds and costs billions more each year to operate and maintain. In many councils, property-related running costs account for a significant proportion of controllable expenditure, at a time when overall council funding per person remains lower in real terms than it was a decade ago.

According to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, council core funding per person in England is still around 18% lower in real terms than in 2010, despite recent uplifts. At the same time, demand‑led pressures, particularly adult and children’s social care and temporary accommodation, continue to consume a growing share of available resources. In this environment, how effectively councils use land and buildings is no longer marginal to financial sustainability; it is central to it.

Yet many Corporate Asset Management Strategies remain largely transactional. They focus on statutory compliance, backlog maintenance, and episodic asset disposal driven by short‑term budget gaps. While these elements are essential, on their own they do not answer the strategic questions Directors are now being asked by Members, auditors, and regulators:

• Why do we hold this asset?

• What outcome does it support?

• What risk does it create if we keep it?

• What opportunity are we missing if we don’t act?

That approach no longer works.

The operating context for local authority estates has fundamentally changed. Councils are managing:

• Prolonged financial constraint, with over 40 authorities having required exceptional financial support since 2020

• Rising energy and maintenance costs, alongside ageing estates and historic under‑investment

• Statutory climate commitments, with many councils declaring climate emergencies and setting net‑zero targets for their own operations

• Increasing external scrutiny, with auditors and inspection bodies paying closer attention to asset valuation, impairment, governance and assurance

The National Audit Office has repeatedly highlighted that weaknesses in asset data, condition information, and long‑term property planning increase financial and governance risk. Poor visibility of asset condition and utilisation does not just create operational inefficiency; it undermines confidence in medium‑term financial planning and capital strategies.

At the same time, how councils deliver services has changed structurally since the pandemic. Hybrid working is no longer exceptional: Office for National Statistics data shows that more than 28% of the UK workforce now works in hybrid patterns, with higher prevalence in professional and public‑sector roles. Digital access, flexible service delivery, and place‑based models are increasingly the norm. However, much of the local authority estate was designed for an earlier era, one characterised by siloed departments, full‑time office occupation, and single‑use civic buildings. The result is that many councils are now carrying property that is under‑utilised, carbon‑intensive, and misaligned with how services actually operate today.

A modern Corporate Asset Management Strategy must therefore go far beyond describing what the council owns. It must clearly articulate how each part of the estate supports corporate priorities, from housing growth and regeneration, to prevention, decarbonisation, workforce transformation, and community resilience.

In practice, this means treating assets not as static holdings, but as active tools:

• To unlock brownfield land for housing

• To co‑locate services and partners

• To reduce long‑term revenue liabilities

• To support net‑zero pathways

• To improve access and outcomes for residents

Crucially, this is no longer just about optimising an individual council’s portfolio.

Some of the greatest opportunities for value sit across the wider public estate. Councils, NHS bodies, emergency services, and government agencies often operate from separate buildings in the same places, serving the same communities. The Local Government Association’s One Public Estate (OPE) programme has demonstrated what is possible when this fragmentation is tackled head‑on. By 2023, OPE partnerships had:

• Released land for nearly 38,000 new homes

• Generated over £576 million in capital receipts

• Reduced public‑sector running costs by around £99 million

• Supported more integrated, accessible local services

For Directors responsible for property, estates, regeneration, or place, the message is clear: a refreshed CAMS is not about better buildings for their own sake. It is about reducing risk, enabling delivery, and making scarce resources work harder for communities.

This article explores:

• Why now is the critical moment for councils to rethink how their estates are managed and used

• What “good” looks like in a modern, purpose‑led Corporate Asset Management Strategy

• How to integrate governance, compliance, sustainability, and housing into a coherent framework

• Why One Public Estate (OPE) should sit at the heart of any future‑focused asset strategy

• Practical first steps that Directors and Heads of Service can take to begin a meaningful refresh

Why Refresh Now?

Most local authorities are under intense pressure on three converging fronts: financial sustainability, rising service demand, and increasingly demanding statutory obligations.

Over the past decade, councils have experienced a sustained decline in real‑terms funding per resident, despite recent settlement uplifts. The Institute for Fiscal Studies estimates that core funding per person in England in 2024–25 remains around 18% lower in real terms than in 2010, with reductions most acute in areas of higher deprivation. At the same time, demand‑led services, particularly adult social care, children’s services, and temporary accommodation, are consuming an ever‑larger proportion of available revenue, leaving limited headroom for discretionary investment.

Against this backdrop, the cost of holding and operating property continues to rise. Energy price volatility, ageing building fabric, backlog maintenance, and tightening compliance requirements have all increased the revenue burden associated with council estates. The National Audit Office has consistently warned that historic under‑investment in public buildings has created systemic maintenance backlogs, increasing both financial risk and service disruption if not actively managed through long‑term strategies. Many local authority estates also continue to reflect historic service and workforce models rather than current patterns of use. Buildings designed for full‑time, office‑based working and single‑service delivery are now often:

• Under‑occupied for large parts of the week

• Costly to heat, power and maintain

• Poorly aligned with digital and place‑based service delivery

Office for National Statistics data shows that over 28% of the UK workforce now works in hybrid arrangements, with significantly higher rates in professional and public‑sector roles. Where estates have not been re‑planned in response, councils are effectively paying to maintain space they no longer need in the way it was originally designed. At the same time, expectations placed on councils have expanded rather than reduced. Authorities are now expected to:

• Support housing delivery, including unlocking brownfield land, often with limited capital and increasing viability challenges

• Respond credibly to the climate emergency, with many councils committing to net‑zero operational estates and facing growing pressure to demonstrate progress

• Provide accessible, modern services in communities, increasingly through co‑location and integrated delivery

• Demonstrate strong governance, transparency, and value for money, particularly in relation to asset decisions and capital investment

Audit and regulatory scrutiny is intensifying. Weak asset data, unclear rationales for holding property, and misalignment between asset plans and corporate strategies are increasingly seen as governance and financial resilience risks, not simply operational issues.

For authorities still operating to a pre‑pandemic Corporate Asset Management Strategy, the gap between how the estate is actually used today and how it is planned for continues to widen. That gap manifests in avoidable running costs, missed housing and regeneration opportunities, and increased exposure to financial and compliance risk.

A refreshed Corporate Asset Management Strategy provides a practical mechanism to reconnect land and buildings to corporate reality. When done properly, it aligns asset decision‑making with:

• Medium‑Term Financial Strategy (MTFS) assumptions, ensuring estates are affordable over the long term

• Corporate Plan priorities, making explicit how property enables delivery

• Regeneration and housing ambitions, including pipelines for brownfield land release

• Workforce and digital strategies, reflecting how people actually work and access services

Councils participating in structured estate rationalisation and collaboration, particularly through programmes such as One Public Estate, have demonstrated what is achievable when asset strategies are refreshed and linked to wider outcomes. By 2023, One Public Estate partnerships across England had helped release land for nearly 38,000 homes, generated over £576 million in capital receipts, and reduced public‑sector running costs by around £99 million.

Done well, a modern CAMS reframes property from a passive cost centre into an active strategic enabler, supporting financial resilience, housing delivery, decarbonisation, and better services for residents.

What Does a Modern Corporate Asset Management Strategy Look Like?

A modern Corporate Asset Management Strategy (CAMS) is not simply a document produced to satisfy auditors or governance requirements. It is a live decision‑making framework that guides how land and buildings are used to deliver corporate priorities, manage risk, and create value for communities.

At its best, a CAMS provides clarity and confidence:

• For Members, that asset decisions are aligned to political priorities and represent value for money

• For senior officers, that estates support service delivery, workforce models, and financial sustainability

• For partners, that the council is a credible, collaborative steward of the public estate

Rather than describing the estate in isolation, a modern CAMS sets out how assets are prioritised, invested in, repurposed, shared, or released, and, crucially, who makes those decisions and on what basis.

Key Characteristics of a Strong Corporate Asset Management Strategy

1. A Corporate Landlord Model

A defining feature of a modern CAMS is the adoption of a Corporate Landlord model.

Under this model, decision‑making about land and buildings is clearly centralised, with transparent governance and accountability. Services remain responsible for defining service requirements and outcomes, but ownership of the physical asset, and the risks, costs, and opportunities it carries, sits corporately.

This approach:

• Prevents fragmentation, duplication, and “shadow estates” developing within individual services

• Enables rational decisions that balance cost, risk, carbon, and outcomes across the whole organisation

• Strengthens assurance for auditors, regulators, and Members

Crucially, it also allows difficult but necessary choices to be made, such as whether a building should continue to be held for service delivery, adapted, co‑located, or exited, based on corporate need rather than historic use or local preference.

For Directors, the Corporate Landlord model creates a clear line of sight between asset decisions and the Medium‑Term Financial Strategy, capital programme, and corporate plan.

2. Clear Asset Purpose

Modern asset strategies start with a simple but powerful question: “Why do we hold this asset?”

Rather than classifying buildings purely by type (office, depot, library), assets are categorised by their primary purpose and the outcomes they are meant to support. This could include:

• Direct service delivery

• Income generation and value creation

• Regeneration and place‑making

• Release or repurposing for housing or community use

This clarity of purpose avoids the common trap of trying to make every building do everything, and ultimately doing none of it well. It makes it easier to:

• Set appropriate performance expectations for different asset types

• Apply differentiated investment and maintenance standards

• Have transparent conversations with Members and communities about change

For example, a frontline service building may be retained even if it is not “financially efficient” because of the outcomes it delivers, while a poorly performing commercial asset may be exited despite historic attachment.

Purpose‑led classification gives Directors a defensible framework for saying yes, no, or not anymore.

3. Data‑Led Decisions

A modern CAMS is underpinned by reliable, shared, and transparent data.

Investment, rationalisation, or disposal decisions are informed by evidence rather than anecdote or historical precedent. This typically includes:

• Utilisation and occupancy data

• Condition surveys and backlog maintenance liabilities

• Whole‑life running costs, including energy and lifecycle costs

• Carbon performance and decarbonisation potential

• Statutory compliance status and assurance requirements

Access to consistent data across the estate allows councils to compare assets objectively and prioritise action where risk or opportunity is greatest. It also strengthens governance by ensuring decisions are repeatable, auditable, and explainable.

For Directors and Heads of Service, this moves conversations away from “which building matters most politically” to which asset best supports strategic outcomes at an acceptable level of risk.

The Big Shift

Taken together, these elements represent a fundamental shift in how local authorities think about property.

A modern Corporate Asset Management Strategy:

• Treats land and buildings as strategic infrastructure, not legacy baggage

• Embeds property decisions into financial, workforce, and place strategies

• Enables proactive, rather than reactive, estate management

In the current environment, that shift is no longer optional. For anyone with responsibility for property in their directorate, a modern CAMS is the mechanism through which control, clarity, and confidence are restored.

The Three‑Lens Framework for Councils

One of the most effective ways to structure a modern Corporate Asset Management Strategy (CAMS) is through a simple, outcome‑focused three‑lens framework. This approach moves councils away from treating all assets the same and instead recognises that different buildings exist for different reasons and should therefore be managed differently. By applying clear lenses, councils can establish transparent priorities for investment, co‑location, repurposing, or release, while giving Members and senior officers a shared language for asset decisions.

1. Service Delivery Assets

Service Delivery Assets are those that directly support frontline and operational services. These typically include:

• Libraries and community buildings

• Integrated service hubs

• Depots and operational bases

• Day‑to‑day civic and customer‑facing facilities

The starting point for these assets is outcomes, not bricks and mortar.

Key questions Directors should be asking include:

• Is this building still the right place for the service to operate?

• Does it reflect how residents access services today, including digital and assisted models?

• Is the space flexible, accessible, and genuinely well‑used throughout the week?

• Could services be co‑located with partners such as health, police, or voluntary sector organisations to improve outcomes and reduce overheads?

The success of Service Delivery Assets should not be judged primarily by size or cost per square metre. Instead, performance should be assessed through:

• Utilisation and footfall

• Accessibility and inclusion

• Service effectiveness and resident experience

• Contribution to wider place and prevention objectives

A modern CAMS recognises that some service assets may never be “financially optimal”, but they must be strategically and socially justified. Where they are not, difficult but necessary conversations about redesign, relocation, or consolidation must follow.

2. Value Generation Assets

Value Generation Assets are held primarily to support financial resilience, regeneration, or long‑term place outcomes. These may include:

• Commercial property portfolios

• Investment assets

• Regeneration and mixed‑use sites

• Strategic land holdings

For these assets, councils need to be clear‑eyed and commercial, without losing sight of public value. Key considerations include:

• Net yield, after management, voids, financing, and risk costs

• Alignment with social value and regeneration objectives, not just short‑term income

• Exposure to market volatility, interest rates, and tenant risk

• Energy performance, compliance burden, and future decarbonisation costs

This is often the most uncomfortable part of an asset strategy refresh. Many councils hold assets acquired for historic reasons, transfers, legacy regeneration schemes, or earlier investment strategies, that no longer perform as expected in the current economic climate. A mature CAMS provides a framework for asking difficult questions:

• Does this asset still support our financial and place objectives?

• Is the level of risk proportionate to the return?

• Would capital be better deployed elsewhere to support housing, regeneration, or service transformation?

Being honest about which assets genuinely create value, and which quietly drain resources, is not a failure of strategy. It is evidence of professional, responsible stewardship.

3. Release Assets

Release Assets are buildings and land that are surplus to current and future requirements or are underperforming against corporate objectives. In a modern CAMS, disposal or release is not seen as failure, retreat, or loss of control. Instead, it is recognised as active estate management and a critical tool for managing risk and unlocking opportunity. Release can take many forms:

• Sale to fund reinvestment in priority assets or reduce borrowing

• Transfer to town or parish councils, aligning assets with local place leadership

• Community Asset Transfer, enabling new social value while removing long‑term liabilities

• Release of land for housing or regeneration, particularly on brownfield sites where councils can act as enablers

The key is that release decisions are made strategically and proactively, rather than reactively in response to short‑term financial pressure. When aligned to housing, regeneration, and capital strategies, asset release becomes a positive driver of transformation rather than a last resort.

Data, Compliance, and Governance

No Corporate Asset Management Strategy is credible without a firm grip on compliance, assurance, and decision‑making governance.

Directors should expect a modern CAMS to be underpinned by:

• A single, trusted property database (such as a CAFM system) that holds condition, compliance, and utilisation data

• Central tracking of statutory compliance and Assurance Statement Declarations (ASDs), providing confidence to Members and auditors

• Clear, auditable decision trails for why assets are invested in, retained, repurposed, or disposed of

This level of discipline protects:

• Residents, by ensuring buildings are safe and fit for purpose

• Members, by providing transparency and accountability

• Officers, by reducing personal and organisational risk

In an environment of heightened audit and regulatory scrutiny, strong asset governance is no longer optional, it is a foundation of corporate assurance.

Sustainability, Community Impact, and Housing

A refreshed CAMS must explicitly connect buildings to people and place.

Council estates contribute significantly to:

• Organisational carbon footprints

• Exposure to energy price volatility

• Long‑term climate and resilience risks

A modern asset strategy should therefore:

• Prioritise energy efficiency and fabric‑first investment, focusing on assets councils intend to hold long term

• Identify buildings that are not economically viable to decarbonise, informing rationalisation decisions

• Align estate strategies with net‑zero pathways, rather than treating carbon reduction as a retrofit afterthought

At the same time, surplus land and underused buildings represent one of the most realistic routes for councils to support housing delivery, particularly on constrained brownfield sites.

Used strategically, Corporate Asset Management Strategies can:

• Reduce long‑term revenue liabilities

• Accelerate housing pipelines and unblock stalled sites

• Support town‑centre regeneration and vitality

• Enable preventative, place‑based models of service delivery

When done well, the CAMS becomes one of the council’s most powerful tools for shaping sustainable places, resilient finances, and better outcomes for communities.

Why One Public Estate (OPE) Should Sit at the Heart of Your CAMS

Here’s the reality facing every council: no local authority can genuinely optimise its estate in isolation.

Across most places, the public estate is highly fragmented. Councils, the NHS, emergency services, arms‑length bodies and central government agencies often operate from separate buildings, in close proximity, serving the same communities. This typically results in:

• Underused buildings sitting side by side

• Duplicated running costs and compliance burdens

• Missed opportunities for integrated, place‑based services

• Fragmented approaches to land release and regeneration

One Public Estate (OPE) exists to address exactly this challenge.

At its core, OPE is not a property programme, it is a place‑based collaboration model, using land and buildings as the mechanism to deliver better outcomes. It provides councils with a structured, nationally supported way to work alongside partners to rationalise estates, integrate services, and unlock development opportunities that would be difficult or impossible to deliver alone.

OPE enables councils to:

• Work with partners on co‑location and service integration, creating shared hubs that improve accessibility while reducing total running costs

• Access revenue funding to support feasibility studies, options appraisals, masterplanning, and business case development

• Unlock capital investment through the Brownfield Land Release Fund (BLRF), particularly for constrained or stalled council‑owned sites

• Build and maintain shared pipelines for housing delivery, regeneration, and estate rationalisation across the public sector

Importantly, councils that embed OPE into their Corporate Asset Management Strategy tend to move faster and with greater confidence. Investment decisions are de‑risked through partnership, site viability is strengthened through external funding, and delivery is supported by a clear governance framework.

By contrast, authorities that treat OPE as a bolt‑on, something pursued opportunistically, or only when funding rounds open, often miss the full value of the programme. Without a clear link to the CAMS, opportunities for collaboration, co‑location, and land release remain ad hoc, reactive, and harder to sustain. A strong, future‑focused CAMS should therefore explicitly embed One Public Estate, not as a separate strand but as an integral part of how the estate is planned and managed. In practical terms, this means the strategy should clearly map:

• Which assets are suitable for OPE collaboration, including opportunities for co‑location or shared service hubs

• Which sites have the potential to be progressed through BLRF, particularly brownfield land that could unlock housing delivery

• How partnership working directly supports corporate priorities, such as housing growth, regeneration, financial resilience, and community access to services

When OPE is treated as a core delivery mechanism rather than an external programme, asset strategies become more ambitious, more realistic, and more deliverable.

Next Steps for Councils

If your Corporate Asset Management Strategy has not been refreshed in the last few years, a full rewrite is not always the right place to start. For many councils, progress comes from testing a new way of thinking and scaling what works.

Practical first steps include:

• Reclassify your estate using a clear, purpose‑led framework, distinguishing between service delivery, value generation, and release assets

• Pilot the approach on a defined subset of assets to challenge assumptions, test data quality, and build confidence before scaling up

• Engage Members early and deliberately, linking asset decisions directly to political priorities such as housing delivery, town‑centre vitality, and community access

• Strengthen existing OPE partnerships or re‑energise them with a refreshed pipeline aligned to your CAMS

• Align the CAMS explicitly with housing, climate, workforce, and MTFS strategies, ensuring property is treated as an enabler of outcomes, not a parallel process

Above all, ensure that the CAMS is used, not just approved. It should be referenced in capital decisions, service redesign conversations, and partnership discussions about place.

Final Thought

In the coming years, the councils most likely to succeed will be those that understand their estate as strategic infrastructure, not simply as a portfolio of buildings inherited from the past.

Refreshing your Corporate Asset Management Strategy is not about better property management in isolation. It is about stronger leadership, clearer choices, and disciplined alignment between land, finance, services, and place. At a time when resources are constrained and expectations are high, making every square metre work harder is no longer optional. A modern CAMS, grounded in purpose, delivered through partnership, and embedded across the organisation, is one of the most powerful tools councils have to build resilient finances, sustainable places, and better outcomes for their communities.

About the Author

Kevin Reader is Head of Property & Landlord Services at Cornwall Council, leading a team of ~70 across a 4,300‑asset, ~£1.9bn portfolio. He has delivered the Corporate Landlord model, a 120‑building rationalisation with £41m capital investment and £5.7m recurring savings, and a £16m renewables programme achieving ~68% decarbonisation of the operational estate. Before Cornwall, Kevin held senior roles with VEON (global workplace/real estate across 10 regions), Aberley (board‑level workplace advisory), and Arcadis (associate partner), leading major programmes with TfL, BEIS, the Metropolitan Police, and others, spanning portfolio optimisation, complex migrations, and commercial negotiations. This blend of delivery at scale, governance and assurance, and place‑focused transformation underpins his standing as a sector thought leader on Corporate Asset Management and estate modernisation.