What is an Asset?
City of Adelaide defines an asset as a physical resource owned or under the care, control and management of Council that contributes to the community’s needs for access to major economic and social facilities. Assets include stormwater and drainage, streets and transportation infrastructure, buildings, lighting and electrical infrastructure, Park Lands and open space areas (including street trees) and urban elements.
What is Asset Management?
In simple terms, asset management is all about how we manage assets throughout their life, on both a day-to-day basis as well as in the medium and long term. The objective of Asset Management is to provide assets that service the needs of the community, at the agreed level of service and at the lowest lifecycle cost. To enable this, it is important to understand:
Effective asset management and sustainable financial planning requires a balance between the maintenance and renewal of existing assets and the delivery of new and upgraded assets.
Why does Council have Asset Management Plans?
Under South Australia’s Local Government Act 1999, Councils are required to develop Asset Management Plans for a period of at least 10 years. The City of Adelaide has six Asset Management Plans, which include
What are operational and maintenance activities?
Operations are regular and ongoing activities undertaken on our assets and include asset inspections, street sweeping, linemarking re-application and power supply costs.
Maintenance activities are works undertaken to ensure our assets are retained as near as practicable to an appropriate service condition and include activities like road patching and footpath repairs.
What is asset renewal?
Asset renewal is generally undertaken when it is no longer cost effective to maintain our assets. It is major capital work which does not significantly alter the original service provided by the asset, but restores, rehabilitates or replaces an existing asset to its original service potential.
Work over and above restoring an asset to original service potential is considered to be an acquisition (or new/upgrade) resulting in additional future operations, maintenance and renewal costs.
How do Council prioritise funding upgrade projects?
Opportunities to create new assets and upgrade existing assets are identified from various sources including our strategic plan, corporate strategies and community requests.
Prioritisation and scheduling of new and upgrade projects is undertaken on an annual basis through the business plan and budget process, in consultation with elected members and the community. Key prioritisation criteria include alignment with our Strategic Plan objectives, risk management and financial capacity.
How does the Strategic Plan determine how our assets are managed?
Our Strategic Plan sets a vision for Adelaide’s future and identifies key focus areas that guide new and upgraded infrastructure priorities to service the evolving needs to the community and respond to current and future challenges. Integrated Delivery Planning ensures that prudent and efficient decisions are made, with line-of-sight between Council’s Strategic Plan objectives and the major infrastructure projects we deliver and ensures alignment (where practical) between asset renewal programs and priority new and upgrade initiatives over a 4-year planning period.
