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UK assets worth £300bn

Summary

The National Asset Register (NAR) covers all central government departments together with their executive agencies (including trading funds). In addition, it includes information on executive non-departmental public bodies (NDPBs), NHS bodies and public corporations.

The NAR records all tangible fixed assets (including military and heritage assets), intangible fixed assets (such as software licences), and fixed asset investments (such as share holdings) owned by departments.

Assets belonging to local authorities are not included, as their assets do not belong to central government. For reasons of national security, no information is included on the assets owned by the Security and Intelligence Services. The January 2007 Register includes entries up to March 2005.

The National Asset Register shows that the state's possessions have tripled in value over the last 10 years.

In addition to land and equipment, assets listed include:
  • The Diana Memorial Fountain valued at £4.2m
  • Watford Gap service station valued at £2.9m
  • Ambassador’s Residence, Washington DC valued at £6.7m
  • Belmarsh Prison valued at £9m
  • Bank of England premises in Threadneedle Street worth £138m.

The predecessor to the NAR was, in fact, the Doomsday Book, produced in 1086 at the request of William the Conqueror.

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Law-Making Explained

This is a Command Paper (Cm. 7022): it is a report from HM Treasury.

Find out more about Command Papers.

How does it affect me?

The publication of the NAR allows the Treasury to identify under-used assets and to organised the disposal of assets no longer needed.

Find out more about the work of the Treasury.

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