Tag Archives: government property unit

Paul Reynolds

Opinion: Should we be selling state assets to reduce debt and create jobs?

By Paul Reynolds | Thu 21st June 2012 - 2:28 pm

One of the unexpected by-products of the controversial privatisations of the 1980s was the discovery of shockingly poor real estate management by state bodies – a rare glimpse of a problem only brought to the surface when the need for proper balance sheets arose.

UK government departments and agencies have since been shown to exhibit appalling asset management, as any sweep through Public Accounts Committee (PAC) or National Audit Office (NAO) reports will demonstrate – stories of unused land & buildings, ‘forgotten’ landholdings, leases on punitive terms, opaque sale of land at below market prices. Government departments also own very large …

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Recent Comments

  • Peter Davies
    There is a general problem that all parties state their targets in terms of new homes built. While regeneration programs replacing bad homes with better ones is...
  • Peter Davies
    As usual, the article talks about a requirement for social homes and "genuinely affordable homes" but a strategy for delivering "affordable homes". We need to b...
  • Tristan Ward
    "The question on Monday evening is whether we should be as wary of it in private hands" Of course we should. We don't like anyone or anything that abuses pow...
  • Pawel Urbanski
    Gareth, thank you for this. Housing is one of the issues raised most often on the doorstep in London, and this is what Lib Dems in action looks like: Richmond, ...
  • David Moon
    We keep obsessing about the National Debt and fiscal rules, when the real weakness of the economy is our trade imbalance with the rest of the world, particularl...