Local government has been urged to get the best value for money it can from its £2.5bn of ‘surplus’ assets.
The soon-to-be-abolished Audit Commission called on councils to ensure they had a ‘strategic approach to managing these assets’.
It said local authorities needed to be ‘mindful of the high costs that can be incurred through occupying buildings’, adding that in 2012/13 English councils spent an estimated £5.6bn – about 4% of revenue spending – on premises-related expenditure.
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