About this report
This report is the fourth in a series of updates on the progress being achieved by Canadian municipalities through FCM’s Municipal Asset Management Program (MAMP). Each web-based report focuses on one of the five competencies from the Asset Management Readiness Scale. The reports incorporate real examples of what communities are doing to improve their decision-making on infrastructure as well as information on tools communities can use to better manage their assets.
By improving asset management practices in your municipality, you gain a clearer understanding of how to use your assets to better meet the needs of your citizens. Municipal council and staff who champion asset management benefit from better decision-making and long-term community planning.
Asset management leadership comes from all municipal levels and departments. For a municipality to foster an effective culture of asset management, motivated individuals must demonstrate how setting expectations, allocating resources and improving accountability ultimately serve the community’s goals.
In this report you’ll discover key activities to foster asset management leadership in your municipality. You’ll also find statistics, case studies and resources detailing the ways Canadian municipalities are championing asset management.
How municipalities improved their leadership on asset management
The most effective ways municipalities used funding from the Municipal Asset Management Program to improve their asset management leadership were through the development of cross-functional teams and attaining resource commitments from senior staff and elected officials. These advancements are tracked through the Asset Management Readiness Scale’s People and Leadership competency.
Since 2017, 456 of MAMP’s municipal grant recipients worked on people and leadership as part of their asset management initiatives through four activities:
83
Establishment of an asset management team/committee
61
Incorporated asset management into job descriptions
371
Employee engagement
265
Council engagement
" Staff involvement in the asset management process is extremely important and valuable. Our staff, and council members who participated, were directly involved throughout the project which enabled each to learn about asset management and how we can better plan for the future."
– Anita Garland, Town Clerk, Town of Milltown-Head of Bay d’Espoir, NL (Project #17058 (2021))
Key resources aimed at improving leadership
Below are resources which will help your municipality with key aspects related to this edition of Insights: People and leadership.
| Title | Author | Type | Description |
|---|
| Change management and asset management go together in Kelowna | FCM's Municipal Asset Management Program | Case Study | Read this case study to learn how Kelowna is making data-driven decisions, improving operational efficiencies and reducing duplication of effort due to its asset management program. |
| Asset management is a joint effort in Manitou Lake | FCM's Municipal Asset Management Program | Case Study | Armed with a new strategic asset management plan and roadmap, Manitou Lake Council is making more informed decisions about levels of service and risk. Learn how asset management is informing their communication with residents. |
| Asset Management Competency Framework: Changing organizational culture in a tangible way | Canadian Network of Asset Managers (CNAM) | Toolkit | The Asset Management Competency Framework for Canadian Communities (AMCF) is a free web portal and toolkit that explains the different skills and knowledge needed for effective asset management. Use this asset management specific toolkit for its template for interview questions, sample job posting and hiring checklist. |
| Ville de Bromont: Créer une dynamique de gestion d'actifs (available in French only) | Centre d’expertise et de recherche en infrastructures urbaines (CERIU) | Video and case study | Looking for support to improve your employee engagement? |
Which municipalities benefit from fostering leadership in asset management?
While demonstrating leadership on asset management serves all municipalities, our data indicates that municipalities with a population of less than 5,000 people (67%) and municipalities with fewer than 5 municipal employees (47%) benefit most positively after one-year initiatives. This is demonstrated through movement by at least one level on FCM’s Asset Management Readiness Scale.
“What we have seen over the course of all the training, is that those municipalities with a strong team and/or champion tend to progress faster and to be more engaged. This applies to municipalities where the “team” may be a single individual, but they are a true champion and see the value in applying asset management principles into their local governance processes, regardless of whether they ever establish or adopt official documents.”
– Christina Hopkins, Asset Management Consultant, Urban Systems, on MAMP-funded training
How to build a dynamic and skilled asset management team
For any municipal initiative to be effective, it must reflect the needs of citizens, employees and the organization. Through working with municipalities who are starting their asset management journey, MAMP has observed the following key successful factors for municipal asset management teams or committees:
- Cross-functional representation from across the organization
- Comprised of staff who understand finance, decision-making, and the planning and operations of each relevant service area
- Familiar with and considerate of the municipality’s climate change and equity objectives
- Represents diversity of roles and lived experience within the municipality
- Foster leadership and connections across the organization
- Focus on efficiencies, shared issues and objectives
- Ensure ongoing staff engagement, where frontline staff have a forum to share their knowledge to support senior management decision-making
- Identify current and future municipal leaders capable of discussions about the needs of the community and detailed discussions around assets and services
- Permanent staff assigned to implement the municipal asset management program. Since asset management is a continuous process, including permanent staff on the team means that this work is sustained and remains a priority.
- Embedding asset management functions within staff job descriptions
- Clear accountability for progress and reporting to Senior Management and Council
Key resources on building asset management teams
Below are resources that will help your municipal asset management team or committee.
The asset management champion on council
Elected officials who champion asset management in council chambers play a pivotal role in the adoption and implementation of good asset management practices. Their support galvanizes action to improve municipal decision-making.
Main ways elected officials can demonstrate leadership on asset management include:
- Participate with staff in training or workshops to better understand challenges and develop a shared understanding of asset management
- Commitment to achieving municipal climate objectives and championing initiatives that integrate climate considerations into the policies and processes
- Leverage the asset management plan to discuss municipal priorities and inform strategic decisions
- Demonstrate buy-in and support by attending asset management team meetings
- Reference the asset management plans as central to business operations
“By completing our Policy, Framework and Roadmap documents, the City's AM practices shifted from being completed on an ad-hoc basis to a strategic, Council-led, program. The process of creating these documents helped spread awareness throughout the organization of the importance and scope of AM practices leading, among other things, to the creation of a new full-time AM Coordinator position, increasing our organizational capacity drastically. This will greatly help us achieve our AM goals.”
– Jennifer Wilson, Service Delivery Management Coordinator, City of Salmon Arm, BC
Key resources for elected officials
These resources will help elected officials who want to demonstrate leadership on asset management.
| Title | Author | Type | Description |
|---|
The Basics of Asset Management for Elected Officials | Nova Scotia Federation of Municipalities (NSFM) | Online course | Take this course designed to provide elected officials with a clear understanding of asset management and how to use it to inform decision making and improve service delivery. Registration and fee required |
| Quel est le rôle du conseil municipal dans la gestion des actifs? (available in French only) | Centre d’expertise et de recherche en infrastructures urbaines (CERIU) | Brief | Read this brief which explains the role of municipal council in overseeing asset management and linking it to the community strategy. |
Asset Management for Elected Officials: Asset Management and Climate Change | Rural Municipalities of Alberta (RMA); Alberta Urban Municipalities Association (AUMA); Infrastructure Asset Management Alberta (IAMA) | Workbook | Use this workbook, designed to equip elected officials with an understanding of how to engage the public in the relevant discussions about asset management. |
Demonstrate continued commitment to asset management
In addition to some of the abovementioned ways of ensuring adequate resourcing and commitments from senior municipal staff and elected officials, there are other measures communities can take to improve their leadership on asset management.
Below are some other examples of ways municipalities are demonstrating their commitment:
- Asset management training for managers and council ensured that all departments understood the benefits and prioritized asset management best practices
- Investing in software decision-making tools and reporting dashboards to track and empower the use of information about expenditure priorities
- Hiring dedicated asset management staff in order to operationalize the ongoing efforts of the municipality
- Establishing protocols for how asset information is recorded, tagged, and accessed by different municipal departments
- Updating council reports and reporting processes to regularly include asset management information in relevant council agenda items
- Communicating to the community through campaigns that inform and teach about the municipality’s needs and how asset management practices safeguard those services the community values most
Resources and training to help you lead
Below are resources which will help you continue to demonstrate leadership on asset management at your municipality.
Measures of success
Below are graphs demonstrating where communities who made progress in this competency rated their people and leadership activities on the asset management readiness scale before and after participating in MAMP activities.
Through MAMP-funded projects, municipalities have moved on average from no commitment towards asset management to commitment and resourcing for the People and leadership competency.
Of the 726 municipalities that improved on the scale:
*Overview of levels
Level 1: Commitment and planning for asset management
Level 2: Resourcing asset management initiatives
Level 3: Implementation of asset management activities and initiatives
Level 4: Operationalizing asset management
Level 5: Continuous improvement of asset management practices and activities
Through MAMP partner-led activities, municipalities have moved on average from commitment towards asset management to resourcing for this competency.
Of the 294 municipalities that improved on the scale:
Unless specified, data provided about MAMP is cumulative from May 2017- March 2024.
