UNLOCKING THE PUBLIC ESTATE Unlocking the Public Estate: what’s really stopping progress—and what councils can change this year

Guy Brett

Guy helped shape the DETR 1999/2000 Good Practice Asset Management work and brings a 25year view of how councils’ estates and property functions have evolved. He learned much of the early craft alongside council teams during Compulsory Competitive Tendering, then worked in consulting and corporate finance at PwC and EY. He later established and led the Strategic Advisory team at Avison Young. A publicsector property strategist and transformation specialist, he has 30 years’ experience across local and central government, higher education and the NHS, and is currently focused on helping councils deliver transformation, cost reduction and LGR programmes.

Guy takes a look back at a 1999 government study and compares those results with the headline results of a smaller survey conducted in 2025. He advises on effective actions that can be taken now, in these turbulent times for local government. 

Context 

Local authorities are being asked to do more with less: protect services, decarbonise estates, build houses and enable growth, while budgets, staffing and development markets remain tight. Meanwhile, Local Government Reorganisation (LGR) is absorbing leadership bandwidth and will multiply the complexity of estate decisions. Watling Consulting (1) ran a short national pulse survey alongside interviews with senior officers. These are early findings, placed in context by a brief look back at the roots of today’s asset‑management practice. 

A short look back and why it still matters 

Running this 2025 pulse took me back to 1999 when, as a research consultant, I contributed to a government study led by the then Department for the Environment, Transport and the Regions (DETR), a predecessor of today’s Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government. 

In that late‑1990s snapshot, the sector faced pre‑digital and structural constraints that were significant in practice, albeit the in-house professional resources that would be the envy of senior officers today.

• Facts were hard to come by: 70% of councils struggled to state total land/buildings held or total property spend 

• Corporate grip was weak: cross‑service asset governance was the exception rather than the norm - just 22% had a cross-service asset board 

• Planning and performance were patchy: only 10% had a corporate asset plan; performance measurement was inconsistent 

• Data lived on paper: three‑quarters relied on paper property terriers, and limited UPRN use hampered analysis. 

The 1999 research culminated in the publication of DETR’s Good Practice Guidelines (2000) (2). ACES members were instrumental in its preparation and moving from largely paper‑based asset records and service‑silo decision‑making to a more corporate, outcomes‑focused approach; as also reflected in work by the Audit Commission (see below) and subsequent guidance from RICS and CIPFA. 

That professionalisation was accelerated by advice led by colleagues such as Keith Jones at DTZ (later Cushman & Wakefield), whose work with councils on organisation design and performance helped build corporate approaches. The issue wasn’t capability: teams were capable and often larger, but the corporate processes, governance and data environment of the time constrained pace and analytics. Compulsory Competitive Tendering was the 1990s requirement for councils to market test services; being generous, it helped reshape property and FM arrangements and catalysed a more corporate asset management mindset. In practice, it created an at times attritional client/contractor split: an intelligent, corporate client function to set strategy, standards and budgets, and a separate ‘contractor’ function delivering day‑to‑day professional and trade services - either via an in‑house team (DSO) or an external winning bidder. I worked alongside Keith advising councils through that period. 

In summary, much has improved since 1999 and the challenges in 2025 are different. However, there are themes promulgated 25 years ago which remain significantly unimplemented – more on this below. 

The DETR Good Practice Guidelines were quickly followed by the Audit Commission’s Hot Property – Getting the Best from Local Authority Assets (2000) which were again supported by an ACES advisory group. Many of its themes and questions still cut through, especially under LGR and One Public Estate. 

Hot property

Source: Audit Commission 

It’s taken 25-years to get to the point where many of these opportunities can now be rolled-out at scale, facilitated by LGR dissolving organisation barriers and ‘sovereignty’ issues. 

Our 2025 pulse check (in flight) 

This summer we combined a rapid literature review with a short national survey (30+ councils) and semi‑structured interviews. The results are provisional, pending full analysis. 

Survey method 

• Pulse survey: c30 councils, summer 2025 (online + interviews) 

• 1999 baseline: DETR/ACES study with over 160 council responses 

• Perspective: informed by the DETR 1999–2000 programme and 25-years’ subsequent work across local and central government. 

What councils are prioritising 

• Rationalisation and savings appear in 80% of councils’ top‑three priority lists 

• Condition and backlog; housing and regeneration; net zero/energy form the next tier 

What’s constraining delivery 

• Budget and resourcing lead the constraints, followed by staffing capacity, data/systems, and maintenance pressures. 

On national priorities 

• Housing: about two‑thirds are using the estate to release land; around four‑fifths say the full opportunity to release land for housing and jobs hasn’t yet been realised. 

Governance and data today 

• Governance: the centre of gravity has shifted decisively towards corporate control; devolved arrangements are now the minority (less than 10%) 

• Data and tools: despite digitisation, fewer than a third express confidence that they have decision‑grade data and tools. Capability exists on paper; confidence in usable, single‑source‑of‑truth insight is patchier. 

Resourcing outlook 

• Only 3 in 10 respondents expect their property function to be adequately resourced over the next 2–3 years. 

Policy watch 

• Interviewees flagged Charity Commission expectations to separate management of charity assets from council assets as leading to more cost and complexity at a time of constrained delivery. 

What this means in practice 

1. The challenge is capacity, to develop and deliver strategy. The need for active asset management planning is acknowledged; the constraint is staffing and funding multi‑year delivery at the pace service, financial and policy pressures require. This requires slick approaches and prioritisation 

2. One estate, many mandates. The same portfolio is expected to unlock housing; support Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND)/Adult Social Care (ASC); decarbonise; consolidate/adapt offices for hybrid working; maintain statutory compliance; provide accessible local joined up services; and support third‑sector groups and SMEs. Trade‑offs must be evidenced, justified and prioritised 

3. Decision‑grade data beats more data. Many councils have systems; too few have a trusted, queryable core data that supports options appraisal, prioritised programmes and business‑case‑ready narratives 

4. When finances tighten, departments tend to reclaim decisions and funding; weakening corporate property’s grip just when cross‑portfolio trade‑offs are most needed 

5. Clarify whether your priority is revenue, capital, or carbon - tie decarbonisation to rightsizing; otherwise 2030 targets drift without credible estate plans. 

For councils in LGR areas, each of these pressures is magnified: you are assigning/novating leases to the new authority and, where needed, varying terms to create flexibility; novating and consolidating FM contracts and Computer-Aided FM; cleaning data sets and creating a single source of truth; updating the Land Registry; and standardising workplace and compliance regimes. All this, while keeping services uninterrupted and delivering the post-merger benefits of a rationalised and modernised portfolio.  

Six changes councils can make this year 

Clock Tower

1. Shift from site‑by‑site decisions to programme phasing 

Treat the estate as a single programme; sequencing reallocating space, associated enabling works, repurposing or disposing of sites across offices and operational assets to enable housing, education and care outcomes over multiple years. Many councils now set simple ‘meanwhile‑use’ policies to keep sites active while permanent schemes progress. 

2. Service‑led pipelines 

Start with the service pressures (SEND places, ASC daytime provision, temporary accommodation) and back‑solve the estate, not the other way round. Agree target outcomes, timelines and decision points with Directors of Children’s and Adult Social Services and the housing team’s Temporary Accommodation lead and feed into asset planning. 

3. Protect the core team and institutional memory 

Where capacity is limited, pair interims with permanents, log the institutional memory (decisions, assumptions, contacts). 

4. Fix hybrid working while implementing footprint reductions (including relocations) 

Enable teams to deliver – they need rooms that work acoustically; reliable collaboration kit (audio-visual including screens, cameras, microphones, speakers, and basic video conferencing and room booking discipline). Make hybrid‑readiness a gate in the rationalisation plan. 

5. Community/third‑sector use policy 

Agree the social outcomes up front; ensure the benefit exceeds any rent discount; set metrics, reporting and review points; include time‑limited terms and break provisions for non‑delivery; and publish both the decision and the opportunity cost. 

6. Upgrade the data that matters 

Aim for a trusted, queryable core data (ownership, condition, cost, utilisation, risk, carbon) tied to a light‑touch options model that answers, ‘what if?’ questions quickly. Adopt a similar ‘what if’ and tracking model for the commercial and investment portfolios. Perfect is the enemy of useful; establish a weekly data‑hygiene routine and track completeness. 

The potential role for ACES now 

ACES has repeatedly moved the profession forward, from the DETR days to today’s Diploma, by supporting the development of practice and investing in people. LGR provides a golden opportunity to accelerate the realisation of themes set out 25 years ago. The next step could be practical help with delivery under constraint (for LGR-affected councils and existing unitary authorities): setting and delivering realistic change programmes, decision support frameworks and sustaining momentum over multi years. 

Call to action 

Contributors: We’ll share the full analysis with participating authorities. If you’d like to join a roundtable or a follow‑up pulse by branch/region, please get in touch. 

References 

1. Watling Consulting is a division of Watling Real Estate Ltd a national real estate professional advisory practice focusing on commercial restructuring, performance improvement and transformation 

2. ACES working party (1999): 

The ACES working party included retired ACES members Charles Coats, Tim Foster and Derek Rowall. 

Acknowledgements 

With thanks to Dr Chris Emin for managing the research, Malcolm Williams for his assistance, Alan Wharton for his contribution and 30+ survey respondents and interviewees across England.