Styles of public asset management in Dutch regional water management

Abstract

Modern infrastructural asset management within the public domain has to deal with many challenges. It has to deal with more and more uncertainties, climatic as well as socio-economical. Furthermore, demands from politicians and society on the functioning of these assets are growing as well. Bad performance of intensively used networks is less and less tolerated, while available budgets are reduced. Finally, more and more stakeholders have to be taken into account while planning and implementing asset management. Regular asset management focuses on the lifecycle of assets, and puts investments in assets in their life-cycle perspective. It considers the performance of assets within the context of their risks and costs. But as in infrastructure asset management goals often are derived from the public interest, this narrow focus of regular asset management can hamper an integrated and holistic view on public interests. Thus, a broadened integrated focus - from different public interests - is needed to realize the desired (public) values: public asset management. Dutch regional water managers have to deal with these trends, especially when it comes to their contribution to the transition towards sustainable energy. To deal with them they need to extend their regular approach of asset management, focused on exploitation and current functions of assets, to a more broadened, public orientated style of asset management in which opportunities for sustainable energy production are capitalized. Hereto, four styles of public asset management can be discerned, depending on task orientation and strategy: monofunctional, integrated, accommodating and learning asset management. This article answers the question which factors explain the selection of a specific style by Dutch water boards and how this might contribute to adding more public value to the management of their assets.