More public-private partnerships (PPPs) could also be on the agenda.
Government departments should be looking at their own balance sheets and identifying inefficient or surplus capital that could be freed up and reinvested in more productive areas, he said in the speech.
Mr English was informing the wider public the Government's investment statement, to be released in the middle of next month, would provide an insight into the Crown's assets and liabilities and identify any significant issues.
However, it appeared Mr English was also signalling that capital, be it in bricks and mortar, or cash, could be up for reallocation.
"If the Government is to get the most out of every dollar, it's important that spending discipline is applied equally to operating and capital spending."
The investment statement, to be released with the half-year update, would state how the Government planned to manage its large and growing investment in taxpayer assets.
"We believe this level of transparent information - in a regular publication - will allow the public to demand a much greater level of accountability from the Government and lead to significantly better decision-making across the public sector."
The Government held about $220 billion of assets - about half of them physical assets such as roads, schools and prisons.
That investment was set to grow by about $30 billion over the next four years, he said. That meant the Crown was the largest single investor in a capital-constrained economy. It was vital the Crown invested its capital efficiently.
The assets had been built up using New Zealanders' taxes and the Government had a huge responsibility to manage them well, Mr English said.
So far, the Government's performance in that area had been poor.
"We have set about to rectify this by introducing better planning, greater price competition and more engagement with the private sector.
"At a time when our finances are constrained, even small improvements in this area could yield substantial gains to reinvest in vital public services and assets like schools, housing and hospitals."
Mr English highlighted in the speech that two major reports were due back early next year, from the Savings Working Group and the Welfare Working Group.
Increasing the rate of national savings was one of the Government's biggest challenges and had become a critical issue for New Zealand.
High debt raised effective interest rates and made it more expensive for businesses to get the capital they needed to expand.
That affected every New Zealander as it limited the number of jobs businesses could create and the wages they could pay, he said.
The savings working group was considering specific areas including:
- The impact of the tax system on savings and investment.
- Improving the operation and outcomes of KiwiSaver.
- The role of fiscal policy in national savings.
"The Government has an open mind about what might be required to lift our savings further and we don't want to prejudge the outcome.
"However, we will be looking closely at the [savings] group's work to see if there are practical ideas to materially lift New Zealand's long-term savings."
Mr English also indicated the Government was about to again get serious about tackling the ongoing problem of welfare dependency, something successive National Party governments have tried to solve.
It was critical the Government addressed long-term welfare dependency and created a system that was sustainable, fair and helped children out of poverty and into a better future, he said.
More than 10% of New Zealand's working age population - 337,000 - received a main benefit and nearly one in five children lived in benefit-dependent families.
In recent years, much of the growth had been in categories where people tended to stay for long periods, such as sickness and invalid's benefits.
Numbers there had roughly doubled since 1995, rising from 74,000 to 143,000.
If current trends in the growth of those benefits continued, 16% of the working-age population could be on a benefit by 2050, Mr English said.
"That is not socially or economically sustainable. While there is a lot of focus on the more than $7 billion a year financial cost of welfare, the social cost of long-term benefit dependency is even greater."
Reducing the social and fiscal costs of long-term benefit dependence was critical and the Government would consider any practical options the Welfare Working Group put forward, he said.
