Government Ownership Matters for Social Good: Governance and management of government property assets in Commonwealth Countries - Australia and India

“There is hardly a section of the community that doesn’t in one breath protest undying hostility to the Government Interference and, the next, pray for it” Sir Robert Menzies With unprecedented urban growth, rising urban population and socio economic shifts, the importance of government owned property asset is becoming fundamental to the delivery of basic urban services to the citizenry. This tangible public asset is an integral part of social capital, investment and social good. There is a growing apprehension that developed and developing countries are fast divesting their government property assets to fund infrastructure, hence compromising on delivery of basic urban services. The governments throughout the world are the largest owners of real property assets. Governments at all levels own, manage and control more property assets than many multinationals, landowners and large corporations put together. These real properties form major part of asset portfolios for the governments at all levels but quite often these public assets are seen as ‘liabilities’ due to lack of good governance, transparency and absence of long term property asset management plans. The lack of governance and inadequate management frameworks of government property assets inversely relates to public accountability and administrative risks, including public services degradation, fiscal, economic, environmental, legislative and social losses. These outcomes conversely effect the perceived notion of social good, hence challenges the investment of social capital in the property assets. The growing trend towards outsourcing or selling of government property assets has caused more administrative complexities, lowering of basic urban services and lack of accountabilities due to substantial gaps between governance and management of these property assets. This research analyses trends, policies and practices linking governance of government owned property assets and asset management frameworks. It critically evaluates the essential public policy frameworks and drivers of urban services which are reliant on government ownership of property assets. The research focuses on testing the assertion ‘The better the governance – the better the management’ in government owned property assets through international practices and applied reforms. The assertion leads to efficient and sustainable management of public assets, thus creating greater value of ‘social return’ by way of investing public funds as ‘social capital’. The history of government property assets, major public property reforms, property asset policies, recent learnings from private sector experiences and international case studies from local government property assets are analysed to develop a conceptual governance framework. Using ‘circles methodology’ for evaluations and benchmarking of government property assets, the research develops key governance, social good, management and exchange indicators for local government property assets in commonwealth countries. The ‘circles methodology’ further assists in developing ‘comparative evaluations’ between selected cities from Australia and India, identifying key policy gaps, public participation, delivery management of basic urban services, strengths and weaknesses of public administrations. This leads to a conceptual city to city learning frameworks that can be established to address the immediate and important need of managing government property assets to deliver better urban services to citizenry in commonwealth countries. The research applies the lenses of ‘clouds of trust’ to further validate that ‘city to city’ learning enables the most effective and advanced environments for learning public management of government property assets at local government levels. It further concludes that substantial lack of open data, absence of property management plans, transparencies and unregulated reforms are adversely affecting the ownerships of government property assets at local government levels, thus requires further research in strengthening the empirical knowledge about government ownerships, their usage to the citizenry and effective returns to the urban societies. In conclusion, this thesis uses the international practices, available public data, case studies and conceptual learning frameworks to endeavour to bring effective public ownership, transparency, long term social good and longevity to the most desirable asset owned by the public – government property assets. ‘Honest disagreement is often a good sign of progress’ Mahatma Gandh