1 November 2024
Today Te Waihanga released their long awaited report: Taking care of tomorrow today – Asset Management State of Play. You can find the report here. The report, which Āpōpō supports, includes a number of recommendations in four areas:
- Improving governance and leadership
- Improving transparency in asset management practices, infrastructure performance and medium-long term funding plans
- Better prioritising of resilience over ‘recovery’
- Build asset management capacity and capability
Over the last two years Āpōpō has been purposefully developing the resources required to support the realisation of many of these recommendations. For example, our ‘free’ digital badge GOV 101 – Infrastructure Leadership and Governance is targeted at improving governance and leadership, particularly by elected officials but also by executives and other leaders. The Āpōpō Guide has been developed as the authoritative guide for asset management professionals in New Zealand and we have established an Āpōpō accreditation programme that formally recognises asset management competency and professionalism. We are also working on a new asset management maturity assessment tool which reflects the GFMAM Asset Management Landscape to ensure that we are comparing ourselves to a recognised global benchmark prepared by our peer organisations from around the world.
And we continue to deliver valuable asset management training. In fact, in the last five years, over 6,500 Digital Badges have been completed – creating a vast knowledge pool in the application of asset management disciplines. However, Te Waihanga’s call for investment in capability development is timely as there has been a concerning drop off in participation following training and development budget cuts in both Central and Local Government. Now is the time to be investing in upskilling and refreshing knowledge – i.e. when things are a little quiet in anticipation of the work that is to come. I encourage you to consider using your own and your team’s possible down time productively and select some Digital Badges or complete an accreditation application now.
Read the Te Waihanga press release here.
Read Āpōpō’s press release here
Gary Porteous
Āpōpō President
