Examination of Witnesses (Questions 160-179)
MRS MAVIS
MCDONALD
CB, MR PETER
UNWIN, MR
ROB SMITH
AND MR
JOE MONTGOMERY
1 JULY 2003
Q160 Mr Clelland: The 2001 White
Paper Strong Local Leadership: Quality Public Services
said, "All government departments will examine, with the
Local Government Association and others, the roles, capabilities
and potential of the bodies currently providing support for capacity-building
in local government". Can you tell us where we are with this
review?
Mrs McDonald: Following the CPA
process we have now set up something called an "Innovation
Forum" which works with the excellent authorities and with
colleagues across Whitehall to promote best practice in different
areas of activity. Again, across the services that local authorities
provide, we engage the other government departments in that.
Q161 Mr Clelland: Is the Review complete
or is it still ongoing?
Mrs McDonald: It is probably better
to think of it as a continuous process really.
Q162 Mr Clelland: How do you assess
whether the Improvement and Development Agency is providing good
value for money?
Mrs McDonald: I would expect the
LGA to want to do that as well as us because they have to make
the bit for the top-slicing funding that goes to promote those
things. What we have been working on with the IDA together with
the LGA is the Innovations Forum that we have set up and how their
programmes of support—particularly for members of the local
government—fit into that. What we want to do next is to
make sure that the IDA, the Audit Commission, the LGA and ourselves
have actually pulled together and identified which area it is
best for each to lead in, but sharing the baseline information
we have got between us in doing so.
Q163 Mr Cummings: The Committee have
been informed that your Department is setting up a cross-departmental
group of officials to consider liveability issues and public spaces.
The Committee also understand that the group was supposed to have
been set up last October. Could you tell the Committee, have the
members yet been appointed; and when will the group's first meeting
be?
Mr Unwin: The paper that was published
by Defra last autumn has led to an interdepartmental group working
on that which has met on a number of occasions.
Q164 Mr Cummings: Has the group been
established officially? For instance, what grade will the members
of the group be; how often will the group meet; and has it had
its first official meeting?
Mr Unwin: The group I am talking
about has met.
Q165 Mr Cummings: Are we talking
about the same group?
Mr Unwin: I think we must be because
it is looking at the same issue. We are represented on it by David
Lunts, the Director in charge of liveability and open policy.
Q166 Mr Cummings: How often will
the group meet?
Mr Unwin: They have met, I would
say, a couple of times in the last few months going back to last
autumn.
Q167 Mr Cummings: Is the group making
a success in working across the various departmental boundaries?
Mr Unwin: Yes, if it is an issue
which requires that every department must be involved. Bringing
that group together and, indeed, the actual publication of the
Green Paper by Defra, has brought that to the fore.
Q168 Mr Cummings: Just to be clear,
the group has had its first official meeting and the group has
been established?
Mr Unwin: Yes, the group I am
talking about, which I am pretty sure is the one you are talking
about and if it is not we will let you have a note.
Q169 Chairman: Has it sorted out
chewing gum!
Mrs McDonald: We have got a significant
number of programmes now, some of which we are running and some
of which Defra are running, which are about improving public spaces
and the nature of the local environment.
Q170 Chairman: Graffiti?
Mrs McDonald: This is all part
of the same set of programmes.
Q171 Chairman: I want to know what
it has actually achieved, rather than that it has met?
Mrs McDonald: We have made various
announcements over the last three to four months on the money
that was available from the Spending Review on improving public
open spaces. Some of that has gone to CABE and some of it is being
spent with local government. We have been working on schemes which
might tie into local PSAs in terms of improvement so we can roll
it out more generally rather than just have a particular programme.
We have got some Pathfinder work going on with the Office of Public
Service Reform about how to set good examples of how you manage
public spaces and look for improvement. Those are just starting
so we have not got precise results from those yet.
Q172 Mr O'Brien: When I look through
the Report I cannot find anything that tells me what is happening
with Regional Development Agencies. Why is that? Could it be that
responsibility for the RDAs is with the DTI?
Mrs McDonald: The sponsorship
responsibility is with the DTI. Some of the programmes the RDA
promote we still fund from the ODPM.
Q173 Mr O'Brien: 90% of the funding
for RDAs is from your Department. How do we measure value for
money? I was looking in here to see what is happening but there
is no reference to it. How do we measure value for money?
Mr Unwin: There is a set of targets
which the RDAs have which is agreed by us with the DTI. As you
know, they now operate under a single pot, and with that single
pot they have to work to a set of targets. As a major funder we
have a major influence on those targets.
Q174 Mr O'Brien: Can you tell me
how much of the funds to the RDAs was spent on enhancing the environment
in urban areas rather than promoting regional economies?
Mr Unwin: I cannot give you that
now. We can look into it.
Q175 Mr O'Brien: Your Department
is providing 90% of the budgets for RDAs. Obviously, if you are
providing that money then you should have an input into the policies
of the RDAs. In urban areas we are looking for an announcement,
particularly in the coalfield areas and the run-down industrial
areas, and I was looking in the Report to see what influence the
Department had on policies of RDAs, and it would be helpful if
you could point them out to me?
Mr Unwin: They have a series of
targets and the ones we relate to are sustainable economic performance,
regeneration in deprived areas, urban renaissance and physical
development, and our money helps to meet that target.
Q176 Mr O'Brien: What influence does
your Department have on the spending or the allocation of money
for urban renaissance?
Mrs McDonald: The money at the
moment does two things: it funds the tail-end of the single regeneration
project, which is gradually phasing out; the money that is then
released goes into the single capital pot, and then within that
single capital pot the RDA is free to take its own views about
particular projects in relation to it is main economic development
strategy. Those strategies are seen by all the relevant departments
and ministers in Whitehall. We relate to the RDAs by regular attendance
by our ministers at the RDA-chaired meetings; and, more specifically,
we have engaged them in the Office more closely in some of our
activities. There will be members of the Regional Housing Board
making recommendations about housing funding; they will be engaged
in the regional spacial plans when the Planning Bill becomes law.
They are partners around the table in quite a lot of activity
that is going on.
Q177 Mr O'Brien: It was in the Report
I was looking for something. The RDAs are the responsibility of
the DTI; the funding comes from the Office of the Deputy Prime
Minister and, therefore, one would assume there would be a large
impact upon the work of the RDAs from the Office of the Deputy
Prime Minister. It is a question of where we find it?
Mr Unwin: Page 50, Chapter 4.
Q178 Mr O'Brien: Regional Development
Agency and English Partnership, but it does not tell me what resources
have been spent on urban regeneration, or what is spent on revitalising
urban areas. I am making the issue that where the money is being
allocated there should be some greater impact upon the policies
of your Department on the work of the RDAs.
Mrs McDonald: We should take that
point away and talk to the DTI about where the fullest picture
is presented and how we cross-relate it.
Q179 Mr Streeter: I have two questions
in relation to RDAs. Roughly one-third of civil servants were
in the regions, and we know the Government Offices are supposed
to work very closely with the RDAs in relation to regional issues.
First of all, are you confident that that relationship is working
well in some of the regions of this country; and how do you measure
it? Or am I wrong to think that there is a relationship?
Mr Smith: There certainly is a
relationship both in terms of the Government Office having some
responsibilities for sponsoring the RDAs, in terms of their spending
and also in terms of appointments. There is a very direct relationship
there which goes back into them reporting to the DTI, as we have
discussed. Also, in terms of a large number of area programmes,
the GOs will be involved as partners with RDAs in terms of ensuring
that improvements take place on the ground. There is that relationship
as well. To promote that, for example, we have had two away events
with the Government Office of Regional Directors and the Chief
Executives of the RDAs in order to both make sure that we are
on-track in terms of relationships and to discuss new issues that
are coming along for the bodies to deal with. There is a close
working relationship. How do we measure the closeness and effectiveness
of that relationship? Certainly the officials of the DTI I have
worked with are very keen to take a view about that closeness
and indeed, if there appear to be issues around, to ask us for
help in resolving those.
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