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Examines the financial accountability implications arising from the adoption of accrual‐based accounting principles by Australia’s largest public sector employee pension fund manager, the State Authorities Superannuation Board of the Australian State of New South Wales (SASB), during its brief existence from 1988 to 1996. While the adoption of accrual‐based accounting principles increased management’s political accountability concerning the performance of SASB’s commercially‐managed asset portfolio, it reduced the level of generational accountability concerning the under‐funding of its major pension fund, the State Authorities Superannuation Scheme (the SAS). Negative political visibility associated with management’s voluntary compliance with a controversial financial reporting standard, together with government’s adoption of accrual accounting, resulted in two major changes in the SASB’s organizational structure. The impact of political visibility on the generational accountability behavior of SASB management is examined by comparing stock and flow funding trends of the SAS over time.

The purpose of this paper is to assess the effectiveness of operational property asset management in Scottish Councils and the extent to which this achieves best value. Appropriate criteria for evaluating asset management effectiveness include the effective use of capital resources, efficient and effective use of property assets, and improved service delivery.

The paper is based on a survey investigating 32 Scottish councils. A questionnaire survey and interview of a select number of key stakeholders were carried out.

The research findings suggest that councils have been less successful in efficiently and effectively using property assets to reduce operating and maintenance costs. They have equally been unsuccessful in bringing about increased staff efficiency. Furthermore, there is a problem of improving service delivery, as councils have been less successful in introducing cross‐service working and co‐location as well as ensuring that properties are easily accessible users. However, councils have been very successful in making effective use of capital receipts to support capital projects.

Unlike other parts of the UK, asset management in Scottish councils has only recently been introduced. This might account for the dearth of similar research on asset management in Scottish councils, making it difficult to compare findings.

As no similar study has been carried out on asset management in Scottish councils, the findings of this research contribute to literature on asset management and best value, thus highlighting the Scottish perspective.

Governments in developing countries manage their considerable state assets for public service delivery directly. In Indonesia, the Directorate of State Asset Management responsible for developing the national strategy for state asset optimization requires the determination of key elements and prioritization tools. The purpose of this paper is to show that a simple calculation using the combination of the balanced scorecard (BCS) and analytical hierarchy process (AHP) will help in the prioritization of strategy development.

A questionnaire survey of 131 multistakeholder respondents to identify the most important key elements and the best alternative for asset optimization was done in this study.

The respondents agree on the most important key elements, and that the best alternative for asset optimization is the efficient maintenance of assets. Competitive human resources comprise the recommended second key element, and that improvements in asset performance and value will improve public service as the second-highest alternative. This study also shows the importance of the integration of asset optimization in existing government strategic instruments supported by a comprehensive data set related to public assets and their performance.

This paper provides a new contribution to integrating asset optimization strategies as the core of the organization’s performance and prioritization strategies. Additional BSC perspectives are suggested, with the inclusion of AHP for prioritization. In addition, this study includes the opinions of all the stakeholders, from external users to the central management. The flexibility of the tools to adapt to the existing strategic framework will allow their application by different agencies and in different countries.

The management of public real estate assets by government agencies has been in place for many years as government agencies own their real estate assets in order to provide services to their communities. The management process becomes progressively complex and difficult because real estate ownership by agencies increases in amount, value and diversity over time. The purpose of this paper is to explore the current characteristics of the real estate management practice that is being implemented by the Malaysian Government agencies.

A qualitative approach has been used for this study where the data were collected through the use of interviews. The respondents to the study were government officers who execute real estate management functions within the ministries. The collected data were subsequently analyzed through the framework analysis method.

The results have shown that eight characteristics can be used to illustrate how the government's real estate assets are managed by the agencies. The characteristics include ad hoc management, a reactive approach, stages of implementation based on property life cycle, more focus on the maintenance management function, management by insufficient and non‐expert staff, management by fragmented departments, lack of information management systems and lack of performance measurement.

Most of these characteristics proved that the practice of real estate management by government agencies is not being carried out efficiently and is unsystematic. Therefore, the Malaysian Federal Government should plan, design and implement a strategic approach to ensure all the negative characteristics are eliminated because, if left unattended, this practice is bound to produce increasingly negative impacts over time.

This paper exposes the status of real estate management practice being implemented by the Malaysian Federal Government agencies. The findings will allow the federal government to determine the advantages and disadvantages of its real estate management operations and could be used to evaluate the capabilities of its agencies. The research output may also be utilized as a reference point by other countries with similar governance structures to assist in improving their public sector real estate management processes.

This paper aims to propose a management model of public assets within public-private partnerships which can be applied to properties subject to a possible requalification through the redevelopment and/or modification of the intended use.

The logic developed is described by an algorithm which borrows the mathematical tools of Operations Research to identify the solution that maximises the utility functions of the parties related to the requalification and management of a public property. The unknowns of the model are the price and concession period, while the constraints reflect the specific and reciprocal conveniences of the actors involved.

The benefits for the private investor are a reduction of the business risk, related to the lower financial outlay required by the investment, and therefore easier access to credit from banks. For the public administration, an increase in the demand of the property offered, savings in the property management costs, along with the preservation of public property. This aspect of no small importance where there is the fear of breaking up public property which local communities attach a high cultural and historic value.

This leads to a logical support to public administrations involved in the requalification of property assets.

This paper presents a strategic approach with long-term prospects, which interprets in a different way a pure concession model, which has a greater flexibility and articulation and also enriches the framework of the projects (public-private) considered necessary for the requalification of public property as well as possible urban transformation projects.

This book chapter intends to analyse a particular measurement basis, namely the ‘value in use’, regarding its definition and application in the public sector context. To this end, the current study assesses the development of a measurement practice in a particular jurisdiction, that is, Italy, compared with requirements in current International Public Sector Accounting Standards (IPSASs), in order to explore its suitability and practicability for a specific category of public sector assets, namely heritage assets.

This introductory chapter elaborates on the tricky issue of measurement in public sector financial reporting, which arises due to the particular features of the public sector when compared to the private sector. It provides a summary of the book chapters, highlighting the theoretical/practical frameworks used, methodologies and conclusions. Three themes are identified in the book, namely, (a) frameworks and methodologies; (b) measuring and reporting the elements in financial statements; and (c) heritage. This chapter identifies important avenues for further research.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a theoretical framework to improve understanding of physical asset management (AM) practices contained in well-known AM standards and guidelines.

Textual thematic analysis of physical AM standards and guidelines was carried out after developing a priori template derived from existing theories in management knowledge. Triangulation to validate the developed theoretical framework was used based on a deductive logic of inquiry equipped with semi-structured interview. The interviewees were managers of physical asset departments of 15 out of 24 ministries of Saudi public sector.

The developed theoretical framework called “systematic asset management practices” (SAMP) explains the logic behind physical AM practices contained in well-known standards and guidelines in terms of the essence of directly related practices for the life cycle of physical assets. SAMP shows that all AM standards and guidelines use a similar logic for managing the life cycles of physical assets.

AM developers can use the SAMP theoretical framework to develop and improve AM guidelines. In addition, the framework enables practitioners to further understand differences among standards and guidelines in addition to their potential future development.

This paper provides an original theory for AM practices, which originally evolved from informal to formal on the basis of practitioners’ logic.

Given the ongoing digital transformation, building information modeling (BIM) has great potential to create a collaborative environment in the whole lifecycle of the built asset, from inception to decommissioning. The paper aims to discuss this issue.

This paper relates current developments in Québec with regard to the use of BIM for asset management (AM). The steps taken by three public organizations to develop their capabilities and take advantage of new possibilities are presented. The main methodological approach is based on participant observation, through case studies complemented by a questionnaire.

This paper reports on results and analysis of an important module of a broader research project on the impact of new technologies and collaborative methods for projects and AM. The results of this first research module points to the importance of using pilot projects to develop a continuous improvement approach, where feedback loops from projects support the development of AM capabilities and culture. Another important finding is the importance of sharing experience for the three public organizations involved.

The main contributions of this paper are to document this overarching research program and to gain deeper insights by reflexively considering the steps taken and the ones ahead for the quest to enhance the transfer of information for built assets at the end of projects to the operations and maintenance phase and to use BIM for operation.