In our last newsletter, we provided an update on the findings of our ACES Survey 2025, a study of Property Asset Management Systems within public authorities. The survey was conducted in partnership with the Association of Chief Estates Surveyors & Property Managers in the Public Sector, exactly a decade after our first benchmark study from 2015, and forty local authority estates teams participated.
The full report revealed that three-quarters of councils use vendor-owned systems, a real shift towards consolidation. However, underneath that headline, the variation is stark: systems range from nine years old to nearly fifty, with a median implementation year of 2015. Our findings reveal a sector carrying a wide spread of legacy alongside newer investment, all at once.
The most uncomfortable finding, though, is this: only 17% of councils formally measure the benefits their system delivers. Four out of five authorities are spending real money, in some cases well over £250,000 a year, without a structured way of knowing whether it's working. Higher spend doesn't correlate with higher satisfaction. We describe this pattern as "spiral replacement": systems bought, implemented, and eventually replaced, without anyone ever establishing whether the last one delivered what it promised.
Initially, the full report was available only to participants, but is now available to interested parties upon request. Contact Tereza Jelinkova to request your copy.
You can read all about the ACES Survey 2025 here.