1 Introduction
1. Select Committees have long carried out inquiries
into their Departments' Annual Reports and Estimates. This has
been recognised as good practice by the Modernisation Committee
which recommended that departmental select committees should examine
and report on estimates and monitor performance against targets
in the Public Service Agreements.[1]
2. This inquiry considers the Annual Report and Estimates
2003 of Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (ODPM).[2]
The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister combines activities inherited
from Department of Transport, Local Government and the Regions,
such as housing, homelessness, urban policy, planning, local and
regional government, neighbourhood renewal and the Fire Service
with additional responsibilities for social exclusion and regional
co-ordination (from the Cabinet Office). This report looks both
at the historic performance and future priorities of the functions
now undertaken by ODPM.
3. The Committee has found much that it can welcome
in the ODPM Annual Report and Accounts 2003, however this report
singles out several areas where there is still progress to be
made.
4. During this inquiry, the Committee took oral evidence
in public from the three Ministers of State:
· Rt
Hon Nick Raynsford, MP, Minister for Local and Regional Government
· Rt Hon Lord
Rooker, Minister for Regeneration and Regional Development; and
· Keith Hill,
Minister for Housing and Planning.
5. We also took evidence from four senior ODPM officials.
The inquiry took place over two evidence sessions in July 2003.
The transcripts of evidence taken, together with additional memoranda
from ODPM, are published alongside this Report.
1 Select Committees, First Report of the Select
Committee on Modernisation of the House of Commons, 2001-02, HC224-I Back
2
ODPM, Annual Report 2003, Cm5906, May 2003 Back
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