Social enterprise applications in an urban facilities management setting: Initial findings

Public facilities operations in local authorities are facing increased costs each year. The need to move away from the traditional service provider approach is seen as a way of reducing running costs in facilities operations. This brings a new notion of developing a sustainable design for maintaining the public facilities for the benefit of the community. Use of urban facilities management (urban FM) as a mechanism for developing a sustainable design for managing public facilities operations could be a way of achieving this in order to make a difference. The underlying philosophy of urban FM is highlighted in the study conducted by the Public Management Foundation UK (PMF), which describes the use of “social enterprise” as an approach to seek a new organisational form. In this context, the study on which this paper is based, explored relationships between urban FM and social enterprise principles within multiple diverse organisations in order to gain further explanations towards developing acceptable criteria for the suggested new model. Furthermore, with the generalisation of the suggested criteria, this paper looks into the applications of this new model in Malaysia within local government settings. In this context, this paper is an attempt to elaborate on the initial findings that emerged from the pilot interviews