By David Williams
23 October 2009
The head of the agency responsible for the government’s major school-building projects has said assets should be owned by private companies because public bodies are ‘useless’ at managing them.
Tim Byles, chief executive of Partnerships
for Schools, which supports major schemes such as the academies programme and Building Schools for the Future, made the remarks during a panel discussion at the Partnerships UK conference.
His comments followed an audience poll that showed 54% of delegates believed assets such as schools and hospitals should be owned publicly in the long term.
‘The public sector is actually useless at managing long-term public assets,’ he told the conference.
‘There’s a major political question about selling the family silver, [but] we’ve done some work on surplus public assets in localities – and 70% have no long-term plans for their future use.
‘So they’ve got a massive asset that they’re not doing anything with.
‘I would certainly argue against the public sector sitting on an asset that it’s not using the value of in a cash-strapped environment.’
Lord Filkin, chair of the 2020 Public Services Trust, told the same session that government was not making the most of its buying power for goods and services.
‘It is barking that individual fire services, police services, health services and local authorities are buying semi-commoditised goods separately, completely failing to leverage the power of buyers,’ he said.
‘No global organisation would have a relationship with its supply side in that way – it has to be sorted out.’
However, Filkin said Scotland was making progress in collaborative buying.
23 October 2009
The head of the agency responsible for the government’s major school-building projects has said assets should be owned by private companies because public bodies are ‘useless’ at managing them.
Tim Byles, chief executive of Partnerships
for Schools, which supports major schemes such as the academies programme and Building Schools for the Future, made the remarks during a panel discussion at the Partnerships UK conference.
His comments followed an audience poll that showed 54% of delegates believed assets such as schools and hospitals should be owned publicly in the long term.
‘The public sector is actually useless at managing long-term public assets,’ he told the conference.
‘There’s a major political question about selling the family silver, [but] we’ve done some work on surplus public assets in localities – and 70% have no long-term plans for their future use.
‘So they’ve got a massive asset that they’re not doing anything with.
‘I would certainly argue against the public sector sitting on an asset that it’s not using the value of in a cash-strapped environment.’
Lord Filkin, chair of the 2020 Public Services Trust, told the same session that government was not making the most of its buying power for goods and services.
‘It is barking that individual fire services, police services, health services and local authorities are buying semi-commoditised goods separately, completely failing to leverage the power of buyers,’ he said.
‘No global organisation would have a relationship with its supply side in that way – it has to be sorted out.’
However, Filkin said Scotland was making progress in collaborative buying.
