Citation
Clarke, S.J. (2000), "Local Authority Property Management: Initiatives, Strategies, Re‐organisation and Reform", Property Management, Vol. 18 No. 5, pp. 403-403. https://doi.org/10.1108/pm.2000.18.5.403.1
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Local government is often viewed by those in the private sector as a sleepy dinosaur, slow to change and evolve in an otherwise fast changing world. For those working in local government and in particular estates and property‐related services, the opposite is true. The rate of change in recent years resulting from government legislation and directives has been significant.
This book sets out to provide a single source of research papers on property‐related issues in local government. The papers have been written by a variety of professionals including academics, local authority officers and surveyors in private practice.
Depending on your particular area of work or specialism these papers have varying degrees of interest. There are 15 papers divided into four sections, “Local authority property management”, “Initiatives and strategies”, “Re‐organisation and reform” and “The way ahead”.
The major problem with the book is that these papers date back to the late 1980s and, therefore, a number of papers have limited value today other than as background information to those new to local government.
However, topics such as “Valuation of specialised public sector assets”, “Local authority non‐operational property – serviceable or surplus” and those relating to asset registers and GIS systems are still very relevant and current.
This book is very much a case of “pick and mix”; some surveyors will only find value in one or two papers while others might consider this a valuable source of material. Unfortunately many textbooks, and research papers are no exception, are rather dry and the best advice is to dip‐in as and when required as use as a reference tool.