Property Asset Utilisation

Property NSW’s effectiveness in managing NSW Government owned and leased commercial office property is limited in three areas according to a report released today by the Auditor-General for New South Wales, Margaret Crawford.

First, Property NSW has not comprehensively reviewed many agency property portfolios to help identify assets that could be better utilised or recycled. Nonetheless, Property NSW has improved utilisation of NSW Government properties by 13.57 per cent since 2012 and is actively moving properties out of the Sydney CBD in line with the ‘Decade of Decentralisation’ policy.

Second, the Government Property Register is not being actively maintained and contains incomplete and inaccurate information, limiting Property NSW’s ability to use it to support strategic decisions about the commercial office properties.

Third, Property NSW does not document how decisions on new leases, renewals and relocations are made, limiting transparency for agencies.

The report recommends that Property NSW takes a proactive role in property portfolio management at the whole-of-government level and improve the quantity and quality of the data held on government owned and leased properties, and the transparency of decision-making.

Further information

Barry Underwood, Director, Office of the Auditor-General, on 0403 073 664 and email barry.underwood@audit.nsw.gov.au.