Forty assets in the council’s portfolio have been identified as the most high-value and critical. Photo / NZME
Forty assets in the council’s portfolio have been identified as the most high-value and critical. Photo / NZME
Whanganui District Council is overhauling the management of its “vertical assets”, which are valued at $1.3 billion.
Property and open spaces general manager Sarah O’Hagan told the council’s risk and assurance committee that vertical assets referred to “bricks and mortar assets around town” rather than roading and Three Waters.
A council report said the cost of reactive maintenance – after a failure has occurred – made up 50% of total maintenance expenditure. Up to 80% of staff time was spent on reactive maintenance.
Best practice was for reactive maintenance to be at 10-20%, with 80-90% for planned and predictive maintenance, it said.
The asset management project launched late last year.
“We have had a risk in this space for some time because of the way in which we’ve held, or not held as the case may be, data information related to our assets,” O’Hagan said.
“I’m really pleased we’ve got this project under way. It’s been a wee while in the making.”
Project lead Stewart White said of the 147 assets in the council’s portfolio, 40 had been identified as the most high-value and critical.
The next step was to establish a base level of their condition.
“Our ultimate goal is to achieve a substantial advance in asset maturity and build a team that is capable of working in new ways – working with evidence and being able to make decisions that provide community benefit,” he said.
“There is a capital budget in the long-term plan of $250,000 for a software solution.
“We are covering the rest of the project costs internally.”
Whanganui District Council chief executive David Langford. Photo / NZME
The report said critical information was dispersed across multiple and often outdated systems, information was inconsistently used to make decisions and there were insufficient details about asset maintenance and renewals.
Chief executive David Langford said the council’s core business was owning assets and having a system aligned with best practice was a “no-brainer”.
“Optimising tens of millions of dollars of spend on our assets is why we are doing this,” he said.
“The financial gains should be significant.”
Langford said the project would be aligned with the International Standards Organisation (ISO).
“There is no legal requirement for it and I believe there is currently no local or central government agency that has [ISO] certification for the asset management standard.
“We are attempting to lead the way a little bit with this.”
White said the project team had a December deadline and was working strenuously to meet it.
“We require a step change in the way that staff operate in this space.”
Mike Tweed is a multimedia journalist at the Whanganui Chronicle. Since starting in March 2020, he has dabbled in everything from sport to music. At present his focus is local government, primarily the Whanganui District Council.
