Research shows asset transfer on the rise
Up to 1,000 exchanges of local authority-owned assets to third sector organisations could be under way throughout England, the Asset Transfer Unit (ATU) will announce today.
Independent research by SQW reveals progress to date has included 350 asset transfer projects from a sample of nearly 120 local authorities.
The ATU says the ‘snapshot’ produced by the survey could mean a bigger picture of up to 1,000 projects moving from local authority ownership to third sector bodies.
On the back of the SQW findings, Hugo Rolo, head of assets and investment at the Development Trusts Association, which manages the ATU, said that 1,000 actual projects was a ‘conservative’ estimate of the actual scale of activity and predicted that the transfers would mean ‘major operational and efficiency savings for the public sector’.
Current transfer projects include the revamp of a former library in Tyne and Wear to the ‘Birtley Community Hub’ which now houses a local credit union and the North East Council for Addictions, after Gateshead Council transferred ownership to the Birtley community project on a 99-year lease basis for a peppercorn rent this summer.
The survey results coincide with the launch of the fourth round of the Advancing Assets for Communities demonstration programme, offering advice and support to local authorities and public sector partners seeking to develop joint asset transfer plans.
In keeping with the recommendations of the original Quirk review of community management and ownership of public assets, the next round of Advancing Assets enables more than 30 local authorities and third sector partners to benefit between 2010-11.
Invitations from those who have not already participated in the programme are now being sought.
Barbara Follett, parliamentary under secretary of state at DCLG, said the successful ATU projects could bring ‘real added social value’ and demonstrated ‘over and over again, that communities benefit where local authorities listen to and work with their community partners’.
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