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23,3 Asset management in cities:
polyphony in action?
Michela Arnaboldi
392 Dipartimento di Ingegneria Gestionale, Politecnico di Milano, Milano, Italy, and
Irvine Lapsley
Received 9 December 2008 Management School, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK
Revised 12 June 2009
Accepted 4 September 2009
Abstract
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine asset management in three cities. It is informed by
polyphony as a theoretical perspective and draws on the fact-building process to explore the practice
of asset management in these study settings.
Design/methodology/approach A comparative case study approach was adopted to have a
broader understanding of the levels of complexity in the study of polyphony in asset management.
With this aim, the three Scottish cities were analysed presenting a spectrum of city types.
Findings The paper finds evidence of polyphony. The three cases show different degrees of
controversies and achievements, providing a highly variegated picture of the effectiveness in pursuing
an asset management policy.
Originality/value Polyphony recognises the many voices of actors present in organisations. This
perspective on asset management is an important, but relatively neglected facet of this aspect of city
management. The paper provides an insight in this, showing the potential for the multiple voices of the
many different actors within local government, all of whom may have distinct views on asset
utilisation.
Keywords Assets management, Cities, Scotland, Public sector orgainzations, Case studies
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
Each person has her or his own unique voice, grounded in the body, formed by experience,
and shaped by perception. When people in groups organized or are organized to work
together to accomplish a complex task none could achieve alone, there are at least as many
voices as there are people. However, some are louder. More articulate, or more powerful than
others. Often, these are the voices of those who direct the work and they usually speak in the
same discourse. Some voices remain unheard or silent, their words unspoken or experiences
unspeakable, their discourses unacceptable or undeveloped, their contributions to the
community limited (Hazen, 1993, p. 16).
This paper examines the neglected area of asset management in cities. As local
government organisations, cities are complex entities on a number of levels: their
relationship to central government, the influence of the electorate, the wide range of
services which they offer and the multiplicity of professional groups which occupy
Accounting, Auditing & organisational space within the local authority. This complex setting has a resonance
Accountability Journal
Vol. 23 No. 3, 2010
with contemporary debates around organizational polyphony (Kornberger et al., 2006).
pp. 392-419 The diversity of assets held by cities (e.g. schools, roads, monuments, houses)
q Emerald Group Publishing Limited
0951-3574
accentuates the potential for multiple discourses within different professional cadres,
DOI 10.1108/09513571011034352 who have responsibilities for a variety of assets. A case study approach is used in this
paper to investigate the thoughts, actions and discourses of key actors in the different Asset
disciplines involved in asset management in three very different cities.
The practice of City Asset Management in local authorities is heteronomous and
management in
involves a variety of different actors such as, departmental managers, accountants, cities
and politicians. In this paper we explore the role that accountants play in this complex
process and in relation to other groups with interests in, or responsibilities for, capital
assets. In this respect, capital accountants in local authorities offer a distinct rationality 393
to asset management. Accountants bring formality and calculation to bear in the
matter of asset management, but not with a pervasive impact. Indeed, within these case
studies there is evidence that the deployment of accounting procedures has been
adopted to prevent conflicts with other managers. Other professionals within this
setting define their own meanings of asset management in discourses with networks of
professionals in other local authorities, their professional associations and government
agencies. A contested discourse results in which accounting is largely crowded out.
However, the three cities included in this study offer evidence of shades of
polyphony, which are shaped by the different contexts of these cities. In this study we
encountered what can be considered polyphony at one case study setting, with an
attenuated form of polyphony at another case study setting. The final case study
reveals the significance of local context with a form of dualism, rather than the great
variety of voices that you expect in the polyphonic organisation.
To show this variety of outcomes, to articulate the polyphonic debate, and to
contextualise them in the specific settings of the three cities, the rest of this article is
structured in the following sections: the next section presents the context of asset
management in cities; in section three we illustrate the theoretical framework we
endorse polyphony, drawing on actor network theory. The fourth section is
dedicated to presenting the methodology, which is a key element for capturing the
variety of voices in asset management; then we present the results, followed by
discussion and conclusion.
Research approach
This paper adopted a case study approach (Stake, 1995), investigating three case study
settings, to which we refer throughout the paper as Cosmos, Indus and Rura. These
fictitious names have been selected to preserve the anonymity of the cities and key
informants who collaborated with this study.
We adopted a comparative case study approach to have a broader understanding of
the levels of complexity in our study of polyphony in asset management. With this aim,
the three cities present a spectrum of city types (Table I). Cosmos is a major
AAAJ cosmopolitan city, with a population of nearly 500,000 people. Cosmos has a diverse
variety of assets, including cultural heritage assets, natural assets, social infrastructure
23,3 assets. Indus is an industrial city, with a population of nearly 150,000 within the City
boundaries, but with more than 300,000 residents within a 30-minute drive of the city
centre. It has an extensive road network, social infrastructure (school, libraries). It also
has considerable industrial estates as part of its economic regeneration programme.
398 Rura is the capital city of a rural county. It has a population of nearly 60,000 persons. It
has some light industry, but is predominantly agricultural-related business. It has
heritage assets, modern housing estates, leisure assets and extensive road networks.
These three cities provided useful settings for analysing the research questions of:
how are asset management policies implemented? To what extent, if any, have
accounting thought and practices (as encapsulated in capital accounting) penetrated
these authorities? Is there a common approach to asset management, or are there
different voices as in a Babel (Hazen, 1993; Kornberger et al., 2006).
The complexity of asset management necessitates community engagement with a
range of external stakeholders (citizens, the elderly, schools, commercial activities),
politicians and central governments. Given the focus of the reform from which this
study originated (Scottish Executive, 2005), our attention is directed at managers, as
they are dominant actors within this process. Much of the literature (government
guidance, professional accounting bodies publications) addresses the concerns and
actions of managers. This raises issues over whether primacy can be given to a
managerial voice or managerial voices in the processes of asset management. Though
the boundary may be not always clear (as for example in the case of national networks
of managers), this focus is important for the interpretation of polyphony in action,
given the centrality of management in official guidance.
The main source of data was face-to-face interviews with all the voices around the
management of assets in the cities that were studied. Preliminary documentary
analysis and internet sources provided information for selecting the informants to be
included in the analysis. As suggested by authors elaborating on polyphony (Hazen,
1993; Moriceau, 2007) we interviewed all the informants who may have a voice in the
management of assets: asset managers, facility managers, service managers, technical
support staff, financial managers, accountants, and corporate planners. In identifying
informants an analysis of the assets managed by the three cities was made (see table
above). This revealed a commonality of assets held at each local authority, but with
some differentiation over the background of those responsible for these assets.
However the only professional group (Rawson, 1994), which emerges was accountants.
Rura: Dualism
408 The approach to asset management at Rura City is very distinctive. Even before the
government started advising local authorities to adopt a more corporate approach to
asset management with formal asset management policies, Rura City Council had
started this. Rura installed a structure to address the issues of achieving a more
effective corporate wide policy. There were a number of elements to this. In the first
instance, one of the most gifted and articulate officers within Rura was appointed as
Director of Asset Management (DAM), as confirmed by everyone we spoke to:
She [the DAM] is the most gifted person in Rura (Chief Financial Officer at Rura).
She [the DAM] is a key person to advise us on asset management. We have a close
relationship, we work closely together. Our staff work together very closely (Capital
Accountant at Rura).
We do have a whole capital asset management approach at the corporate level and she [the
DAM] is the one who has the larger, holistic look; for all these issues it is worth speaking to
her (Director of Planning regulation and economic development at Rura).
Second, Rura brought together all aspects of asset management estate management,
facility management, capital works design and management, architectural services,
and building maintenance within a single department, directed by the DAM. Third,
this department was located in a single building, in a separate location from Corporate
HQ, becoming a one stop shop for any asset management issue:
We are kind of technical advisors. We try to get asset management plans, what we need to do
with property, but also facilities, gas networks, so different advice. But also part of the system
we are selling our property, refurbishment projects in the school, and last year we were doing
the capital refurbishment housing plan. We are a one stop shop for property (DAM at Rura).
Also, the DAM was part of the overall corporate team, working closely with the Head
of Resources, who was, in fact, an accountant. The DAM organised this department
into three teams an asset strategy team, a professional and construction team, and a
facility management team. All of the above points to a single, unitary, corporate wide
approach to asset management. This corporate approach addressed the issue of
PFI/PPP projects by working closely together with the finance team under the Head of
Resources, recognising that this was the only viable option for Rura Council to build
capital projects. This was used to build PFI/PPP schools. However, from the start,
there was a break from the corporate vision. All capital asset matters sat within the
sphere of the DAM except for roads and transport. This exception proved to
undermine the unitary approach and create a dualism in Ruras asset management, as
shown below, with wider repercussions for the corporate wide view, with indications of
further fracturing in the future.
However, the DAM has reservations about the effectiveness of the integrated policy
adopted at Rura. Some of this dissatisfaction comes from the external voice of the
Scottish government, which impinges on the activities of Rura City Council. For a start,
the government push for a more corporate approach to asset management (Scottish
Executive, 2005) is under the auspices of the Best Value Audit regime, which may have Asset
dysfunctional consequences for service delivery (Power, 1997; Arnaboldi and Lapsley,
2008). Indeed, the DAM expressed frustration over this process, as the following
management in
comment reveals: cities
. . . we need to provide rough property indicators, and at the end we are very good at
satisfying the indicators, and the indicators become our role, where our role should be about
what a community is, what are the assets they need (DAM at Rura). 409
Another voice which impinges on Ruras asset management policies is that of the
elected politicians on Rura Council. Here, the DAM expressed frustration. In the DAMs
view, politicians at Rura need a very clear idea of what the choices are to help them to
exercise choice.
The idea of a corporate wide approach to asset management had considerable
appeal to the DAM when this department was first formed. However, the DAM was
now sceptical about whether the Rura corporate management team actually
understood all the priorities of the council areas. Furthermore she was not
convinced of their capacity to engage in joined up thinking.
Im not convinced we have a joined-up policy. We have policies for school estate, library,
sector policies. Im going to write the umbrella process, in which we include the information of
what they own, on backlog maintenance, strategy. We are going to suggest a new framework
for asset management, a model in which you have objectives and under that we will have not
a huge document but two-three pages done every year of the service asset management plan:
what are your services objectives, what property underpins those objectives, we refresh that
we work with services to understand which are the critical elements to deliver their services
objectives (DAM at Rura).
This raises questions generally about the likely success of the fully integrated
corporate wide approach to asset management. It also is indicative of the resurrection
of the many dormant voices which may have been unheard when the corporate
approach was at its peak.
While Ruras DAM and colleagues oversaw the needs of most of the city councils
objectives, there remained the other voice transport and roads. The Director of
Transport and Roads is very articulate. His voice reaches many parts of the
organisation and also outside the organisation politicians and citizens in particular.
His voice is strengthened by his membership of the roads network. But his
fact-building and his communication of what he saw as the needs of his service extends
well beyond the activities of the roads network. The Director of Transport and Roads
had committed Rura to the national network of chief officers of transport in Scotland.
For Rura, the results revealed that 33 per cent of its carriageways needed repair, which
made it 6-7 per cent below the national average. The poor conditions were positively
welcomed by the Director of Roads and Transport, who has mobilised the results of the
national road condition survey to secure additional resources to be allocated to his
service. The motivation of this network was attributed to an agenda within the
professionals in the roads industry to secure greater resources from their local
authority budgets. As the Director of Transport and Roads at Rura put it:
We did this survey to defend our position. It is a professional defense. If you go to childrens
services you will find the pattern of expenditure is the other way round. But they dont have
these kinds of graphs (referring to outcomes of national roads survey), because if your pattern
AAAJ of spending is the other way round from ours, you dont want to show this picture. The
elected members of Rura have an education bias, so that is where the money has been going.
23,3
The Director of Transport and Roads has exercised his voice over resource allocation
in many ways. He has advocated an incremental budgeting system for roads on the
basis of the national roads survey to the elected politicians. He concedes that he does
not have an asset management policy, other than the criterion that if a road is busy and
410 in bad condition it should become a priority. Indeed, despite the success of the roads
condition survey, this director is basically sceptical about the merits of sophisticated
asset management systems. He describes the valuation of assets as a purely academic
exercise:
Roads are public goods, putting a value to them appear to me to be just an academic exercise.
It is an academic deciding if you use the replacement value and so on. The complexity of
placing a value is too high. [. . .] Just to conclude on this, we dont have an asset valuation, an
investment plan, but we have the survey and we also have other indicators on the use on the
basis of the volume of traffic. Because we have a limited amount of money, maintenance
priorities are set on these indicators (Director of Transport and Roads at Rura).
However, he considers that an asset management system which would cost c. 500k
was unnecessary because Ruras network is not always that busy and there are always
alternative roads. The politicians were nervous about accepting this proposal because
they saw that this meant the unclassified roads network would receive limited
investment. This outcome has to be seen alongside a separate but parallel development
the articulation of a City Transport Strategy. This is the responsibility of the Director
of Transport and Roads, who has developed a City Transport Strategy. This is built on
the basis of a growing city, which has to address issues of congestion and pollution.
This also has implications for investment in roads as more development means more
traffic and road usage. He has mobilised this fact-building on other pressures on roads
to convince politicians of the need for greater investment in roads. As the director put
it:
It is very useful if I am also beating for money for other projects this is my plan.
However, to clinch political support, this director recognised that he had to engage the
public in his mission. As the director expressed it:
If the public see the condition of the network, that would be the driving force for change. We
are taking a technical perspective but without this claimant of the public it would be more
problematic.
As part of the development of the City Transport Strategy he convened a series of
public meetings to explain the thinking behind Ruras policy. At public meetings the
condition of the roads was raised, frequently. The director was able to inform the
public of the Rura City Councils record on roads maintenance. He was also able to
point in Rura City Councils strategy on road maintenance, which meant that, in
effect, minor roads would only be resurfaced once every 250 years. This had the
desired effect in terms of activating public interest in improving expenditure on roads.
However, the success of the voice of the roads service has had repercussions
within Rura city. In particular, the dualism of the centralised, corporate asset
management, on the one hand, and the roads and transport, on the other, has become a
focus of discontent within the city. Other voices, which had previously been dormant
have started to re-emerge. The capital accountant who works closely with all services Asset
in framing Ruras capital works programme warned on this:
management in
It would be better if there was greater consistency of asset management. We should be setting cities
priorities across the entire council. We should not have a situation where we have one service
with a greater level of resources than it needs. We should be able to redistribute resources.
This takes us into a debate on centralization of the corporate level function and our relations
with politicians (Capital Accountant at Rura). 411
This officer spoke positively of the overall corporate management approach developed
by the asset management department. He stressed how there was collegiality and this
was a feature of the corporate approach, although he conceded that this was largely
officer driven and devoid of political engagement. He highlighted that city politicians
are not interested in participating and understanding the process of defining the citys
asset management policy.
One of the things we need to address is the kinds of issues which can arise over the absence of
political impact. For example, elected members may pressure local interests rather than
taking a corporate or whole council view. A recent example of this is on the disposal of
assets, where elected members want the product of the sale to return to their constituency
rather than see the use of funds for the benefit of the whole council. We need a statement
where the Council sets out what it is trying to do with its asset management policies.
This approach of politicians can create problems in resolving the citys final budget
discussions. It can also be problematic in addressing competing or conflicting policy
claims. This is especially so where plans affect the citizens that politicians represent as
elected members. They are then reluctant to commit to overarching policies, which
may work against their local interests. In relation to the success of Transport and
Roads in the budget allocations, he observed:
I would like to get to a situation in which the council takes the initiative with a proper
investment plan to address the areas which need investment, instead of listening to who
shouts loudest.
Other manifestations of voices can be heard within other services. In Education, asset
management staff have been transferred from corporate asset management to sit
within the service department. This department has traditionally been the preferred
beneficiary of resources within Rura. This can be seen from actual expenditure on this
service, but also the location of Ruras largest capital programme on PFI/PPP schools.
The internal regulator of these PFI/PPP schemes had the boundaries pushed to the
limit to accommodate these investments. This is an indication of the multiple voices
favouring this service both officers and elected politicians. But the transfer of asset
management staff to Education appears to be the start of a process of disassembling
the dualism of Rura.
Another important service at Rura is that of housing. This was something of a
surprise to Rura Council. The Council had embarked on an extensive consultation with
the tenants of its properties about the desirability of ownership of Ruras entire
housing stock moving to a housing association. However, the tenants in Ruras
publicly owned housing voted firmly to stay within Rura Council. This change of
direction has prompted Rura to seek new leadership in the area. Rura Council has
responded to the rejection of housing stock transfer by appointing a new Director of
Housing. This Director has embarked upon a serious fact-building exercise to
determine the condition of Ruras housing stock. He has also undertaken an extensive
AAAJ consultation with tenants and has enabled them to voice their views on the quality of
their service. These fact-building exercises have identified major issues with the need
23,3 to refurbish houses, but also with houses, which are in the locations characterised by
declining population and unattractive housing stock. As part of this fact-building
exercise, asset management staff have been transferred to the Housing Department.
And here we see the pressures build up for voices to re-emerge, which have, hitherto,
412 been dormant. These voices look set to further weaken both Ruras intended unitary
path to asset management and its actual outcome of dualism.
cities
cases
A summary of the three
415
Table II.
management in
AAAJ This paper also has implications for our understanding of government policy. Two
government requirements are related to asset management. The first one is the 2005
23,3 non-statutory note, which advocated asset management under the Best Value
umbrella; it proposed the enactment of a unitary policy, making a direct relation with
auditing and performance measurement (Scottish Executive, 2005). The second is the
introduction of capital accounting in local authorities, which has a longer and more
416 controversial history dating back to 1989 (Deakin, 1999). In both cases central
government does not provide precise rules for their implementation, leaving the
possibility for each authority to choose its own appropriate path. The genesis of the
vagueness rests in the three different approaches but with a common element: capital
accounting is appropriate for external accountability but it is not suitable for
managerial and budgeting purposes. The attempt to use accrual and capital accounting
in the public sector for managerial objectives is not new and several reforms have gone
in this direction; the result is often a compliant application, which does not touch the
core internal practices of organisations. This study showed a similar result: capital
accounting is directed to the auditors but the numbers themselves are not considered
useful in management decisions. At Rura the decoupling of these practices and their
goal is explicit and financial managers do not push for a different use of financial
statements; at Cosmos and Indus there is instead an attempt to link the two
government requirements asset management policy and capital accounting
adding the accounting discourse to the existing polyphony and, thus, creating further
controversies.
Notes
1. Since the reestablishment of the Scottish Parliament in 1997, the executive, civil service
functions have been fulfilled by a body known as The Scottish Executive. Since 2007 this
body has been renamed the Scottish Government.
2. The concept of polyphonic is not well established in the accounting literature although some
authors have used it to present their discussions and debates (see for example Ahrens et al.,
2008; Dillard, 2008).
3. See, for example Public Private Partnership: an introduction by Broadbent and Laughlin
(2003) or the Public Private Partnership section on the HM Treasury web site
(www.hm-treasury.gov.uk)
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Corresponding author
Michela Arnaboldi can be contacted at: michela.arnaboldi@polimi.it