Te Waihanga has begun work on developing a State of Play report on how good our public institutions are at asset management. This is an important area to get right – as 99% of the infrastructure we’ll need tomorrow is already in existence.
In sheer dollar terms our greatest expense over the next 30 years will be the cost of repairing or replacing infrastructure that’s old or wearing out. Rautaki Hanganga o Aotearoa (the New Zealand Infrastructure Strategy) estimates that for every $40 spent on new infrastructure, we should be investing $60 in maintenance and renewals of existing assets.
Many of these assets are owned and looked after by public institutions – central government agencies and entities, and local councils. We rely on them to look after their assets to benefit us today and plan for the future needs of generations to come.
However, there isn’t enough information available together in one place to tell us much about asset management capability or performance – we can’t really say how well we’re doing across these institutions and their asset networks. So, we want to learn more about the state of asset management practice today to help improve all aspects of our system – learning what’s working well and delivering the best value from our assets, and, where things are not working well, learning why this is and how they could be improved.
Over coming months, a team commissioned by Te Waihanga will be asking leading practitioners and stakeholders about their experiences and insights, as part of developing this State of Play of Asset Management in New Zealand. The team includes some of New Zealand’s most recognised independent asset management consultants: Brian Smith, Maxine Forde, David Jeffrey, Steve Browning, and Lisa Roberts, with assistance from Steve Verity based in Australia. The State of Play report is due out by mid-2023.
If you have any questions about this project, please contact AssetManagement@tewaihanga.govt.nz
Subscribe to our newsletter to stay up to date with this work
