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UNCORRECTED TRANSCRIPT OF ORAL EVIDENCE To be published as HC 44-i House of COMMONS MINUTES OF EVIDENCE TAKEN BEFORE OFFICE OF THE DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER: HOUSING, PLANNING, LOCAL GOVERNMENT AND THE REGIONS COMMITTEE
Monday 8 December 2003 JANET BIBBY, STEPHEN JOHNSON, GERALD OPPENHEIM and MARK MCGANN TREVOR BEATTIE, ROB PEARSON, ALAN CLARKE and MARTIN BRIGGS RT HON LORD ROOKER, MELANIE JOHNSON MP and RT HON MARGARET HODGE MBE MP Evidence heard in Public Questions 97 - 256
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Oral Evidence Taken before the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister: Housing, Planning, Local Government and the Regions Committee, Urban Affairs Sub-Committee on Monday 8 December 2003 Members present Mr David Clelland, in the Chair Andrew Bennett Mr Clive Betts Mr John Cummings Chris Mole Christine Russell ________________ Memoranda submitted by Coalfields Regeneration Trust, Heritage Lottery Fund and Community Fund/New Opportunities Fund Examination of Witnesses Witnesses: JANET BIBBY, Chief Executive, Coalfields Regeneration Trust; STEPHEN JOHNSON, Director of Operations, Heritage Lottery Fund; GERALD OPPENHEIM, Director of Policy and Communications, Community Fund; and MARK MCGANN, Head of Policy, New Opportunities Fund; examined. Q97 Chairman: Good afternoon. Thank you for coming. Welcome to this session of the Committee. Can we begin with introductions and start with Mr Oppenheim perhaps, for the purposes of the record, please? Mr Oppenheim: I am Gerald Oppenheim. I am Director of Policy and Communications at the Community Fund. Mr McGann: My name is Mark McGann, Head of Policy at the New Opportunities Fund. I am standing in for my colleague Vanessa Potter, who is ill, I am afraid. Ms Bibby: I am Janet Bibby, Chief Executive of the Coalfields Regeneration Trust. Mr Johnson: I am Stephen Johnson, Director of Operations at the Heritage Lottery Fund. Q98 Chairman: Does anyone want to make an opening statement, or are you happy to go straight into the questions? Mr Oppenheim: Straight in, I think. Q99 Mr Cummings: I am sure you will agree that the whole nation has heard such a lot about the huge social and economic problems there are within the coalfields communities. Can you tell the Committee what impact you will be able to make in addressing them? Mr Oppenheim: I think the impact that we can make is to support organisations which are representative of people who live in coalfield communities, whether those are community organisations or more formally constituted as charities, for example, and certainly for the Community Fund to respond to the requests for funding that they put to us for things that will improve life in the communities. I think that is our key role, and to support applicants through a process of seeking grants, which can be quite difficult, and help them through following up on the grants later on. Mr Johnson: I think we are doing much the same. What we are trying to do, in concert with other distributors, including the Coalfields Regeneration Trust, is actually to help coalfields people make applications to us, come to us with real proposals that will make a difference, from their perspective, in what they want to do. We are not capacity-building ourselves, in building that capacity, but we are capacity-building through the joint action which we can undertake with others. Q100 Mr Cummings: You have provided the Committee with extremely long lists and descriptions of the projects you fund, which do appear to be mainly one-off capital grants. Do not the areas in which you are involved require sustained revenue funding over a longer period, in order for those schemes to be successful? Mr Oppenheim: I think there is a mix of funding that goes in. It depends partly on the Lottery distributor that is making the award, some will have more of an emphasis on capital than others. Certainly you are right, Mr Cummings, the emphasis does need also to be on revenue support, and pretty well all the grants that the Community Fund makes available do go to groups to help them employ a member of staff, meet their running costs for up to three years, with a possibility of renewal for another three after that. I think the important point to make as well is that Lottery funding, through the directions that all the distributors have from Government, from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, which is our sponsor Department in Government, does put the emphasis on supporting projects. Inevitably, that means there is a tension between supporting projects and supporting continuing costs. Q101 Mr Cummings: Is it emphasis, or is it more instructions? Mr Oppenheim: It is an emphasis, I think, it is not an instruction, but it does depend very much on the programmes that each individual Lottery distributor runs. Q102 Mr Cummings: Have you thought about challenging the Government by providing revenue? Mr McGann: The Lottery in 1998 was redesigned so that they could fund revenue funding. Something we have recognised in the New Opportunities Fund is the tension between short-term funding and long-term needs. Through the Fair Share initiative, the Fair Share Trust, we have provided funding, albeit modest funding, over a ten-year period, so each year there was a predicted amount of money for communities, including many coalfield communities. Q103 Mr Cummings: Did they redraw the plan? Mr McGann: Yes, absolutely. Ms Bibby: In terms of the Trust, we are funded ourselves only in three-year tranches of funding, therefore it is very difficult to build in long-term sustainability for groups' funding. However, what we do have are regional managers who work with groups on the ground to look at the sustainability of projects before we fund them. Q104 Andrew Bennett: Basically, the coalfield areas are not getting a fair deal, are they, out of the Lottery money? They spend a lot of Lottery money, and when you look at the constituencies up and down the country which get the least money about half of those are in the coalfields, either because there is not the capacity for people to make bids, or there is discrimination against the coalfield areas. They are not getting a fair deal, are they? Mr Oppenheim: I think the statistics show that contention certainly was true, if you go back to 1997, coalfield communities were doing less well per head of population than pretty well any other community you care to define, by geography or type of community. The figures I am aware of from the Department of Culture, looking right across Lottery funding, not just those of us who are here today, show that in 1997 the funding was about £19 per head of population and that is up now to £36, £37, so we are moving in the right direction. Q105 Andrew Bennett: We have got a long way to go, have we not? Mr Oppenheim: I agree absolutely with that point, certainly. Q106 Mr Cummings: Are you providing assistance for applicants to fill in the forms, the complications that arise out of filling in forms? Mr Oppenheim: Yes, we do. Q107 Mr Cummings: I see a big difference between someone living in Selly Oak, someone with a great deal of professionalism, and someone living in a very small mining village, who is doing it part-time? Mr Oppenheim: Yes, we do that. We run very regular surgeries to help applicants fill in forms, to take their questions, help them through the problems. We cannot fill in the forms for them, at the end of the day, because there is a question of fairness across all the people who apply for funds, but we do put a lot of effort into surgeries and one-off help. Mr McGann: At the New Opportunities Fund, we are moving away from application by system. For instance, we have used a lot of partners locally but also we have allocated money to certain areas, which often has been skewed for disadvantage. We have found that works quite well in saying to an area, "You've got this much money if you develop a proposal," and, of course, we can help develop that proposal. I think, historically, you are absolutely right, that the lotteries have not sent the people who are good at filling in forms, but I do think the figures are showing it is changing for the better across the piece. Ms Bibby: At the Trust, it is a fundamental part of our provision, and, what is more, throughout the life of a grant we have an in-house grants team who work with a problem-solving approach throughout the life of the grant to make sure that the group are supported. Mr Johnson: One of the things that we have found is that simplification of what we do has been one of the watchwords. Certainly it has been one of the things that people in coalfields, or people in all sectors of life actually, have said is something that we, the Lottery distributors, ought to be doing, and I know we have tried very hard to simplify some of our processes. There has got to be a process when you are applying for public money. Q108 Mr Cummings: What sort of monitoring systems do you have to ensure that you are making a difference to local communities? Mr Oppenheim: There are a number of ways of doing this. There are individual relationships with individual organisations that hold grants, and I think all the distributors will have in place monitoring systems to track what is happening, to see if the project that was bid for is being delivered in the way that everybody hoped it would be. Then, on a much larger scale, there are some evaluation studies that go on over time to measure and research what happens on the ground, so that we can all have a better idea of the difference being made. Ms Bibby: I think that is right to say that we have a number of monitoring systems, as everyone would have. CRT currently is having an evaluation project undertaken by York Consulting. I spoke to the consultants this morning, who gave me some emerging, positive themes which suggest that CRT is filling a gap which other funders are not meeting, and there is evidence that the CRT investment could be perceived as regeneration risk capital available at a local level. Q109 Christine Russell: I was just writing down what you were saying there, Janet. You were saying that actually you fill a gap which other funders do not, because the question I was going to ask you is what do you do that the local authorities are not doing? How are you different? Ms Bibby: I think, the local authorities, by their very nature and the statutory provision which they have to provide, it means that they have a bureaucracy, quite rightly. The Trust was set up to be flexible, to be able to move quickly, and a good example of that is our position in the Selby Task Force, in the way we were able to help the 90-day rule come into play to make the payments, and we were the only organisation which could do that. Unfortunately, local authorities have departmental silos, and I do not mean that in a detrimental sense, it is part of the way services are provided. Something like the Trust is able to cross-cut across departmental agendas, and I am thinking particularly of the way that we meet the Department of Health agenda, in looking at innovative respite care, the way that we look at the skills agenda, with our investment in the SKILLSbuilder programme, and the way that we look at the Home Office agenda, for example, in Regenerate, our new focus programme. Q110 Christine Russell: Can I ask you three gentlemen, in your experience working in the coalfield communities, how proactively engaged are the local authorities in working with and encouraging community and voluntary groups to put together bids to your organisations? Mr Johnson: I am not sure I can answer the question about how proactively all local authorities engage, I think it is some and some. Obviously, you get some local authorities which have got more of a capacity to do that than others. All I can say is that we cannot act against local authorities, we have always got to act with the grain of what they are trying to do as well. What we have tried to do is work within the framework of Local Strategic Partnerships, for example, to make sure that we are doing the kinds of things that the Strategic Partnership is looking for, and contacting local groups. Yes, of course, there is always going to be a level at which you are contacting people who want to do something on the ground which is not approved by someone, but also contacting local groups to make sure that what we are doing is known about by the local authorities in whose authorities we are trying to spend. We are trying to play it both ways, in one sense. Mr McGann: I think my relatively limited experience is that where local authorities have taken the Lottery very seriously and put a lot of effort into galvanising activity locally then those areas have done well. Without naming names, my impression is that in some of the areas, including coalfield areas - - - Q111 Christine Russell: It does not depend on the size or the capacity or the authority, it is just whether or not they are prepared actually to do it? Mr McGann: I think it is about lateral thinking. You could say either the Lottery is not for local authorities, it is more about education, or something, or you can say, "Boy, is this an opportunity" and seize it, and those who have have done rather well out of it. I feel that, local authorities which have not taken the Lottery seriously, their local communities have suffered as a result. Mr Oppenheim: I think, from our experience, it depends very much how engaged already a local authority is with its voluntary sector, and many local authorities have a long and very, very good tradition of supporting local community organisations, local charities, with grants of their own or through contract arrangements. In parts of the country where that is not such a well-developed relationship then it is much more difficult to find community-based organisations to fund. Certainly that has been some of our experience, though I would not want to overstate it, in coalfield areas. In our early attempts to target some of our money we found that where actually we put in a lot of time and effort, not only to working with community organisations but to working with elected members and their officers in local authorities, that really pays dividends but sometimes can be a very lengthy piece of work, but ultimately worthwhile. Q112 Christine Russell: Is what you are saying really that you find it difficult because the kind of voluntary sector infrastructure is not there in many of the coalfield communities? Mr Oppenheim: Absolutely, yes, and it takes time to build that up. Q113 Christine Russell: Do you feel that your funds are necessary because local authorities just do not have the funds? Do you feel that you are funding projects, programmes, whatever, which perhaps in other parts of the country are funded by local authorities, but they simply do not have sufficient resources in the coalfield communities? Mr Oppenheim: I do not think so necessarily. We are always very careful, I think, to make sure that we do not fund where a local authority or another statutory body, for that matter, ought to be funding, in terms of there being a duty to fund. We would not want to see Lottery money substituting in that way. These days sometimes it is very hard to draw a line. I think you have to take what you find. We try to respond to the aspirations that local organisations put to us. Again, I go back to my earlier point, that where we have put the effort in to doing some development work, to working with a local authority, you can begin to get over some of those problems, recognising, of course, that local authorities are constrained for financial resources as well. Q114 Mr Cummings: These questions are directed at the Coalfields Regeneration Trust. The first question is, quite simply, what is the expected life of the Trust? Ms Bibby: We would like to see the Government having a medium-term investment of ten years in coalfield communities. Q115 Mr Cummings: The expected life of the Trust, is it not three years? Ms Bibby: At the moment, the Trust will cease in March 2005. Q116 Mr Cummings: Does this not cause you deep-rooted problems, inasmuch as you can plan for only perhaps a three-year funding round? Ms Bibby: Absolutely. Q117 Mr Cummings: If this is the case, how does that link into Urban II and European funds, and how do you co-ordinate and link them together in any particular projects? Ms Bibby: With great difficulty, obviously. In terms of our grant funding, we have to spend most of it within the first 18 months of a three-year funding tranche, in order to get it spent and monitored in time, to act as though we will cease to operate at the end of that period. It makes it very difficult to use, in terms of match-funding because if there are delays in other funding programmes we are unable to match them. Our role which is emerging, which is a more strategic and influencing role, it is very difficult to plan when we can only ever commit for a three-year period. For example, our new project with English Partnerships, where we have developed a roving team to make sure that local people benefit from the development of ex-colliery sites. It is very difficult when by the time you have got people in post that will be last in the three-year project. Q118 Mr Cummings: It is easy to see the problems that you have identified, but do you think there will ever be a time when the coalfields are fully regenerated and the Trust will no longer be required? Ms Bibby: I think there will be a time when the Trust will no longer be required. I would not like to put a timescale on that, but I think we do need some long-termism really to plan and give communities some confidence so that we can attack things. I think we would be really happy to have performance indicators and milestones attached to that, but we do feel that we are trying to instil some sustainability when we have no longevity ourselves. Q119 Andrew Bennett: Should you not have a target for when you should put yourselves out of business? There are one or two colliery disaster funds which are still making payments about 100 years after the colliery disaster happened. Surely you should look at that as a horrible warning and think, "Well, in another six years, or another nine years, we should be planning to finish"? Ms Bibby: I agree with you totally. Q120 Andrew Bennett: Come on then, tell us when? Ms Bibby: A ten-year, medium term. Q121 Andrew Bennett: Ten from now or ten from when it started? Ms Bibby: Ten from now, in terms of we want to move communities forward. This is not about living in the past, this is about moving communities forward. Q122 Christine Russell: In my constituency, along with probably hundreds of other constituencies, hundreds of thousands of manufacturing jobs were lost in the eighties and nineties, in my case they were mainly jobs in the steelworks, in north-east Wales. Why should the coalfield communities be treated as a special case when the old steel communities have not been, to the same extent, by all your organisations? Ms Bibby: I think the coalfields have a long history as the engine of the nation's industrialisation, and the settlements which grew out of that have an unparalleled reliance on a single industry. I think the difference in that really is that it was not just about employment but also it was as a paternalistic provider of shelter, social welfare, recreation and often financial and retail services. Therefore, when the industry went into decline, with nothing in place to alleviate that, the massive problems, the unemployment, the physical isolation and the poor infrastructure created a legacy of deprivation which has become entrenched. That is not just the physical effects, that is also attitudinal, therefore there is a real job for significant regeneration activity. Q123 Christine Russell: Is that mindset still there, do you think? Ms Bibby: I think so, yes. Mr Johnson: From a heritage perspective, I think it is our job to reflect the whole history of the nation, and the coalfields themselves were a history of about 150, 200 years of the nation. When I look at the coalfields areas I do not see just the coalfields areas, I see the landscape that was there before the coalfields started being exploited and I see the landscape that is going to be there in the future. Therefore, I think we have got a long-term interest in what is happening in coalfields areas, as we have got a long-term interest in what is happening for tin-mining in Cornwall, or for lead-mining in the Pennines, or actually for peat extraction in the Norfolk Broads. They are all aspects of landscape which have been shaped by people's use of it. Q124 Christine Russell: Is that because the landscape was more attractive than the landscape where the steelworks were? Mr Johnson: No, I do not think it is more attractive. I am sorry, I am expressing a personal view there. It is not necessarily more attractive. What we are trying to do is say, "Look, there are things of value to people here, because this is the tradition, this is the culture, this is your background, and what we want to do is build on that past in order for you to have a better future." Mr McGann: I do not want to speak for Gerald, but I think the funding community, when we set up Fair Share, would agree with you. We were only interested in coalfield areas where they were both disadvantaged and they had not received average funding, and if they were not disadvantaged and if they had received better than average funding then they did not benefit from Fair Share. Which they did disproportionately, because coalfields do tend to be a pretty good proxy for the kinds of areas which are disadvantaged and which do not receive their fair share, therefore they did rather well out of Fair Share. I think we would agree, that would be best. Barnsley is different, I think, because that was focused on as a coalfield area. Mr Oppenheim: Just to pick that one up. That was our first attempt at doing a bit of geographic targeting in an area where we had not had many applications, and we knew levels of disadvantage were very high and we would have expected more to happen. I think the point for us is that we have a duty, in our policy directions, to respond to applications that come in on their merits. When we were constructing Fair Share a couple of years ago, with colleagues at the New Opportunities Fund, we decided, and I hope it helps to answer your question, as well as making a case for supporting the Fair Share areas, also to give ourselves a target of making sure that the top 100 most disadvantaged areas in England continued to receive the sort of median average level of funding that we had been providing historically, to try to make sure that we did not end up with more areas slipping below over time. Q125 Mr Betts: Is Fair Share working in every area then? Mr Oppenheim: Fair Share is working in 77 local authority areas in England. Q126 Mr Betts: Has it been successful in every area it is working in, shall I say? Mr Oppenheim: I would not go that far. It has been very successful in many but there are still a few areas where, 18 months to two years in, we are aware that the financial targets that we have set are not yet being met, and that is a reflection really of everything we have been saying earlier on about poor infrastructure in some local authority areas for the voluntary sector. Until that is built up, we are not going to see that flow-through of money that we might expect to see in other areas. We have had some enormous successes so far, in some authorities in Yorkshire, for example. Wakefield is one example, where the money is just beginning to flow through in the way that we would have expected it to, and there are many others like that as well, but it takes time. Q127 Mr Betts: As I understand it, the successes so far are about ensuring that the coalfield areas get their fair share of the funds on a current basis, but they are not at this stage making up for the historical underfunding and underprovision. Is there a plan to deal with that as well? Mr Oppenheim: No, there is not. It would be hard, I think, in one go to reflect the historic position in the allocations we make. What we know, as was being said earlier, is that the amount per capita going into coalfield areas pretty well has doubled, from £19 to £38 per head over the last six years or so. There is still a way to go to bring it up to that level, but Fair Share runs to March 2005. We will have to take stock, as I suspect we will, with the New Opportunities Fund, there will be one distribution body by then, to see what else needs doing. Q128 Mr Betts: Fair Share applies just for the Communities Fund and New Opportunities Fund. Is there a similar scheme for other funds? Mr Johnson: What we are trying to do is not to try to even out our expenditure across the whole of the country. Indeed, the Heritage Select Committee, the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee, when they looked at us, said that actually it was unrealistic for us to try to do that because there are places like London, Edinburgh and Cardiff, which have national museums, which actually require a greater amount of funding. What they said we should try to do was increase our expenditure, increase the number of applications we receive from all areas of the country and find things to do which were not just capital-based. I accept some of what John Cummings has said. Q129 Mr Betts: It is very general, finding things to do. Are you setting yourselves targets? Fair Share at least seems to have a civic objective in place. Mr Johnson: The targets we are setting ourselves are to say let us look at all those areas, and they are not just coalfield areas, which are underfunded so far, because some of them are close to a town, some of them are in other areas of the country. What we are doing is looking in those areas at how we can send in our development teams, our people who actually are influencing applicants to come in and ask for us, to try to stimulate applications from those areas. We are trying to increase the number of good applications we get from there rather than saying necessarily there is a funding target we can actually have. Q130 Mr Betts: Is it working? Mr Johnson: It is working in some areas. It is working extremely well in Easington, as it happens, because Easington was one of the areas that we chose to put our development teams into and really they have been upping the ante in Easington and we are getting in applications. We have done the same for Blyth, up in the North East. It is happening in some areas, and we are putting emphasis into making sure that does happen. Q131 Christine Russell: Can I ask you, Mr Johnson, how easy it is to convince local people that spending money on Heritage Lottery schemes is worthwhile when many of the communities face severe problems of continuing unemployment and poor health, issues like that? Do you get a lot of stick from some people in the coalfield communities who say, "Well, you're putting all this money into this Heritage Lottery project. Wouldn't the money be better spent tackling unemployment, educational failure, poor health?" Mr Johnson: I think people realise that, as an agency which has money voted to us to spend on heritage, we have got to spend it actually on heritage. Q132 Christine Russell: How do you justify that? Mr Johnson: Our view of heritage is getting very dangerously wide, I have to say, is how I would describe it. I think that what we are funding is all sorts of things, which are not health and education or employment, necessarily, but they are using heritage assets in ways which can benefit a wide range of population today. One good example is the way we have dealt with our Urban Parks Programme. Here are urban parks, underfunded by local authorities, because they just did not have the money, they tend to be our applicants. What we have tried to do is say, "Look, let's look at this legacy of Victorian, Edwardian, early 20th century parks, that are there in towns and cities, and actually sometimes in village centres, let's try to do something with those and let's make them vibrant, up-to-date, usable by people today, so that everyone can enjoy them." What we are trying to do is invest in that kind of infrastructure, in order, for the future, actually to have something to use. Q133 Christine Russell: Hand on heart, you can say that you are encouraging people in the coalfield communities to look forward as well as looking back? Mr Johnson: I think we are. That was the flavour of the piece of work which we did, with CCC and CRT, when we did this piece of research a couple of years ago. What we tried to do was say, "Let's find out from people, if we're branded in terms of heritage, what actually they would like us to spend our money on," and they came back with all sorts of ideas, which we are now trying to follow up, and we are trying to make sure we do. Q134 Chris Mole: Many of the coalfield areas do not really have a clear economic role any more. What role can you take in identifying a role for them? Ms Bibby: I think, in terms of finding an economic role, the secret is to create diversity in the economic base and improve the quality of jobs in the areas. For the Trust, obviously, we need to reconnect people with mainstream economies, people on estates who are disconnected from that mainstream work. I think if that work is not done then people on the estates will never be engaged, and that will always pull down the economic and social make-up of an area, because it will always affect it. We need to work more on skills, and paradoxically the mining industry was a great provider of skills training, so not only did people lose that but they lost a lot of the skills training and found themselves in need of reskilling. Things like SKILLSbuilder, where actually we redeploy miners at risk and people who are being made redundant directly into the construction industry, where there are huge skill sector shortages, are fundamental to creating that economic base for the coalfields. Mr Oppenheim: The position that we are in, in the Community Fund, is that really we can support only much smaller-scale enterprises, and we have made a few grants now, quite interestingly, to organisations which are, I suppose you could call them, sort of village companies, or village enterprises, organisations which are trying to set up one or two units which might house a local printing company or do some local training to help people get back into the jobs market, to retrain, reskill. I think those are fairly small activities, again, spread over three years, but they begin to add up to something a bit more, and obviously we hope and want to encourage them to be successful. Mr McGann: I think it is important, the latter is not, in its essence, about economic development, although just thinking of the Eden Project in Cornwall, which is in a tin mine, which has had a huge impact on the local economy, that was reliant on a local idea. I think the Lottery is good at supporting perhaps the kind of big capital projects, and there have been some notable failures, of course. I think the Committee ought to note that the new body which will emerge out of the NOF/Community Fund merger will have a strong remit to continue funding that kind of big transformation and capital projects. I think it is there, as well as in the smaller projects, that the Lottery will continue to have an important effect on areas which are down on their luck. Q135 Chris Mole: Have you got an investment in the Earth Centre in South Yorkshire? Mr McGann: No. I think that is the Millennium Commission. We will take on the legacy of such successes as the (- inaudible -). Q136 Chris Mole: I shall not press you on that one. Can I ask what role the Heritage Fund is going to have in supporting job creation and Lottery funds? Mr Johnson: I think our role is rather more indirect. I think we do support museums, parks. For example, looking at parks, we do try to make sure that where we are investing in the capital of an urban park we are getting a promise out of the local authority concerned that they will make sure that is maintained for the next ten, 25 years. Normally they do not like giving those kinds of promises because they would like not to have to, but we do try to pin them to the wire and say, "Look, you must make sure that there is added support, more staff to make sure the park is safe, more staff to make sure the park actually is properly looked after," gardeners, and so on. Another area which I think we do look at is the economic regeneration of towns. Our Townscapes Programme, which we say is part of economic regeneration, is there to provide that support for communities by investing in the townscape, by investing in the spaces between the buildings and giving people four indicators which we are trying to look at. One is quality of life, where we are trying very hard to work out what quality of life means. The second is the townscape improvements themselves, the way in which we are refurbishing buildings and refurbishing spaces. The third is what it does mean in terms of economic regeneration, how many businesses are relocating, how many jobs are being created, and we are trying to track that over time. Fourthly, we are trying to give people that confidence about themselves and find out what they think about the places and what the image of that town or that village or that townscape actually is. We are tracking all that, and we started that in 1998, and we are tracking that through the programme. Five years is just about up and it is about time that actually we had a first report on how we are doing, but in ten years' time we shall have a better report because we have set some baselines. Chairman: With that, can I thank you all very much for your evidence and call the next set of witnesses. Thank you very much. Memoranda submitted by English Partnerships and One NorthEast Examination of Witnesses Witnesses: TREVOR BEATTIE, Corporate Strategy Director, and ROB PEARSON, Head of National Programmes, English Partnerships; ALAN CLARKE, Chief Executive, One NorthEast; and MARTIN BRIGGS, Chief Executive, East Midlands Development Agency; examined. Q137 Chairman: Good afternoon. Thank you for coming. Could we begin, please, with introductions, for the record. Perhaps Mr Pearson would like to start? Mr Pearson: I am Rob Pearson. I am Head of National Programmes, English Partnerships. Mr Beattie: I am Trevor Beattie. I am Corporate Strategy Director for English Partnerships, which includes responsibility for National Programmes and of course the coalfields. Mr Briggs: Martin Briggs, the Chief Executive of the East Midlands Development Agency. Mr Clarke: Alan Clarke, Chief Executive of One NorthEast. Q138 Chairman: Thank you very much. Does anyone want to say anything by way of introduction, or can we go straight to questions? Mr Briggs: Shall I just say, on behalf of us all, I think we see ourselves as in the middle of an important programme which has made good progress, and we felt that, rather than making a series of introductory statements giving the experience to date, it might be a good idea to get stuck into the questions straightaway. Q139 Mr Betts: Do you think that English Partnerships and the RDAs are working effectively together to regenerate the coalfields? Mr Briggs: I think it has been a very productive partnership between us. I think actually at the heart of what Regional Development Agencies have been asked to do, certainly both in the formation of regional economic strategies and in their subsequent delivery, partnership is the key word. It is a much overused word now. There is a complexity both in terms of the public/private linkage and in the range of different agencies involved. On occasions one stands back from that and says, well, in an ideal world, this might look a bit different, but, in practical terms, I think we have had very good evidence within the Coalfield Programmes of a very close working relationship, which has delivered a lot of practical change on the ground. Mr Beattie: I would like just to add that, from English Partnerships' perspective, that is entirely our view. I think what we have shown in this joint working is that it matters far less who owns the sites, or exactly the pattern of delivery on the ground, what matters is a very close working relationship between EP, the RDA, the local authorities and all the other parties, and that has worked extremely well. Mr Clarke: At the more formal level, we have two people from RDAs on the Board of English Partnerships, so that helps the cross-working as well, and then, on a more informal basis, in the North East, we have a long tradition of working very closely together with English Partnerships. Q140 Mr Betts: Would it surprise you that we had some submissions which suggest the funding initiatives targeting the coalfields sometimes are poorly co-ordinated, and perhaps suggesting that why do we need EP and the RDAs, why do we not have one body which combines a sort of land-holding function and the economic development function? Mr Briggs: There is a question for Government, in terms of the way in which the network of agencies created work together. I would say, actually, the ambition of Regional Development Agencies and their regional economic strategies, of course, not owned by the Agencies themselves but their regional community, is huge in itself and it covers a very wide field. I would be quite surprised if, in delivery terms, there were not occasions when people said "That could have been done more effectively." I think one of the themes of what we say to you this afternoon is that we have made good but so far limited progress in integrating a whole range of policy streams in regeneration, encompassing skills, enterprise, innovation and physical regeneration, and we need to take it further. There are occasional glitches, specifically in relation to physical regeneration programmes, but I think any examples where English Partnerships and the RDAs are said not to have worked closely together would indeed be few and far between, in my experience. Mr Beattie: The essential element of the programme is that it is national, and therefore if a site goes slowly, for whatever reason, we have the ability to team in aid, we have the ability to bring forward sites, to make sure we maintain the momentum of the programme, and English Partnerships has been able to do that at a national level. Also, of course, at a national level, involving private sector partners at national level, exchanging best practice, and so on. I believe that it has been that very national overview and flexibility which has kept us on target. Q141 Mr Betts: Do none of you see any room for improvement? Mr Clarke: I think there is a need for some streamlining, in terms of delivery. There is a whole range of different regeneration initiatives that goes much more broadly than English Partnerships and the Regional Development Agency. Perhaps there are almost too many local strategic partnerships, and so on, so I think there is scope for some rationalisation and improvement, in terms of delivery. You have got to remember that the other balance of that is, we allow sub-regional partnerships, quite rightly, to develop some local solutions to the particular issues in their area, so there is that issue which needs to be addressed in this as well, so I would say, yes, there is scope. Also, there are only so many talented regeneration professionals around, and people from the voluntary sector. I think that is a real issue, if they are spread too thinly. Mr Pearson: I think, at a practical level, we have been shown to have very complementary skill sets, taking on what are some very, very difficult sites throughout the country. I think it is how we build upon that and the degree of linkage into other things which will improve the product in time. Q142 Mr Cummings: My question is to the Regional Development Agencies, Chair. The Committee have received submissions which have highlighted the varying levels of commitment by the RDAs to regenerating the coalfields. However, are you in danger of concentrating on the large conurbations, which are more attractive to private investors, and are you not neglecting the smaller pockets of intense deprivation in semi-rural coalfield areas? Could you tell the Committee how the coalfield business plan is tying in to existing coalfield regeneration plans? Mr Clarke: First of all, through the concept that I talked about before, which in the North East is the sub-regional partnerships, we delegated very early on 75 per cent of the free money that was available after legacy programmes, and two of those sub-regions are Northumberland and Durham. Q143 Mr Cummings: Could you say something about the residual money? Mr Clarke: When Regional Development Agencies were set up, in 1999, there were a lot of inherited programmes and projects which had started already, but there was a decision that 75 per cent of that money which was available for new projects should be delegated to sub-regional partnerships and for the priorities of sub-regional partnerships. As the years have gone on, the amount of money has increased significantly, as the old programmes have finished. Two of the sub-regions in the North East are Northumberland and Durham, which really is where the ex-coalfields are concentrated, or, in the case of Northumberland, there is still one deep-cast mine. In those areas, a significant amount of resource is being spent on coalfield issues, to meet targets that the Regional Development Agency has set, but where local decisions have been made to address the very issues you have talked about. Also, at the regional economic strategy level for the North East, we have two particular initiatives which have helped. One is all around physical infrastructure and the other is about urban and rural regeneration. In Northumberland, we have linked together an initiative with the coalfields with a North Tyneside Enterprise Zone, to try to make sure that higher levels of unemployed people from the coalfield areas in Blyth and Wansbeck can gain access to and be connected with the areas where some of the larger numbers of jobs are being created. That is another way in which we are addressing the needs of coalfield areas. Q144 Mr Cummings: Certainly there is a failure, in that you are viewing the larger conurbations as the sexy sorts of investments, to the detriment of people who are living in semi-rural areas within the Durham and Northumberland coalfields. How do you answer these criticisms? Mr Clarke: There are different policy priorities. Indeed, within ODPM itself there are Core Cities initiatives, for instance, there have been things like the Capital of Culture bids, and in the North East we know that Newcastle/Gateshead led on that, although certainly it was a regional initiative. If you look at the allocation of resources since 1999, a significant proportion of that resource has gone to some of the rural communities, some of the areas with lower populations, and indeed the projects they have been spent on have been delegated to local players who decide what the priorities should be. Q145 Mr Cummings: You do not require additional guidance then from the Government to ensure that you give greater priority to the needs of the coalfield areas? Mr Clarke: I think greater regional flexibility would be a step forward so that the region could decide what their priorities were. Q146 Mr Cummings: Do you require additional guidance from the Government? Mr Clarke: Speaking just from the One NorthEast point of view, I would say, no, but other people can give their views. Mr Briggs: Again, I will talk specifically about the East Midlands experience, where the temptation to focus on the major urban areas under the Coalfields Programme does not arise, because the coalfields area excludes our major conurbations. If you were referring to Mansfield as sexy, it is the first time I have heard Mansfield described in that way. Q147 Mr Cummings: No. Basically, I am referring to the larger metropolitan areas? Mr Briggs: Absolutely, and Mansfield and Chesterfield are about the largest places. Q148 Mr Cummings: I am sure Mansfield is sexy. Mr Briggs: I am encouraged to hear you say so, but, substantially, the East Midlands coalfield fundamentally is a rural area, with the overlay of the mining communities, and that produces a series of very important challenges for us. I think one of the dilemmas it does create is quite a fragmentation in the culture there, economically and politically. We are aware that part of the solution to the reshaping of the coalfields and the defining of the new vision, the new future, if you like, is our relations, for example, with Greater Nottingham. Historically, there has been quite a gap, culturally, economically, socially, between the two. What is happening in the conurbations is important, but all of the work that we have carried out, under the Coalfields Programme itself, with English Partnerships and our other partners, has been concentrated on that rural area, of north Nottinghamshire and north Derbyshire. Can I say, because the issue was raised about the variability of regional responses, that I know, in particular, my colleagues at Advantage West Midlands were fingered in a previous discussion here. I know that John Edwards, their Chief Executive, has written to the Chairman to explain that, despite the perception which might come from the way in which they have defined their Regeneration Zones, in a variety of ways, they do see the coalfields issue as a really important part of the overall regeneration challenge which they face. Q149 Mr Cummings: What is he doing about it? Mr Briggs: There is a letter of about six pages. Q150 Mr Cummings: Is it intelligible? Mr Briggs: Absolutely. That letter contains a whole list of things which are happening. Q151 Mr Cummings: Things are going to happen. Are you coming up with the necessary resources to follow this up? You see, it becomes rather tiresome to be told continually, "Yes, we sympathise." We are not looking for sympathy. It is a question of timing? Mr Briggs: I do not want to try the Committee's patience but I think, in fact, the letter contains a whole series of activities which actually are being carried out now. I agree that there is much more to do but there is a huge amount in train in both the East Midlands and West Midlands and I know in the other five regions which are affected in one way or another. Q152 Andrew Bennett: Is not that a problem though that the RDAs have got, that we had to have that long letter, setting out what they were doing, because the witnesses we had at the first session felt they were not doing enough? Surely, an RDA has got two functions, they have got to do things and they have got to make sure that people know that they are doing things? Mr Briggs: Indeed, you have, and one of the things that I have got very used to, in this role, is that you (a) can never do enough and (b) never communicate well enough. There is a huge range of audiences with whom one deals. Though some of the things which are at the heart of the challenge set for Regional Development Agencies are stated simply, in our own case we have established a regional economic ambition, a top 20 region in Europe by 2010, they are very complicated in terms of the range of parties, public, private sector, voluntary communities and others, with whom one deals. I would never be complacent about the effectiveness of our communication, we need to do more of it, but, at the same time, I understand very well why particular interests and particular parties with whom we deal feel we are not doing enough, in terms of their own particular agenda. Q153 Mr Cummings: Can I take this a stage further. A similar argument is that some former mining villages do not really have an economic future and perhaps would change into commuter villages. Having said that, are you confident that it will be possible to regenerate and sustain coalfield communities in the regions? Mr Clarke: I think the first thing to say is that coalfield communities, as you know, are not homogeneous communities, there is a very great variety amongst the different coalfield communities. In the North East we have some of the most remote rural ex-coalfield communities, which clearly when they were coalfields that was the reason why those very communities existed, enormously difficult to find a new substantial role for those communities. Some of it might be around tourism, which is happening increasingly, possibly retail and other cultural areas that we have heard about. In some cases commuting might be an option but in some of the deeper rural areas that is difficult, in parts of Northumberland and Durham. In other cases, the coalfield communities are very, very accessible to the main conurbations, with improved transport, including public transport, and access to some of the new jobs which are being regenerated, in some cases in sectors which looked as though they were on the decline, like ship-building and marine and offshore oil, for instance, on Tyne and on Teesside. Then there is a different sort of role for those communities. In other cases, which is going back before this programme, Monkwearmouth, site of the ex-coal mine in Sunderland, is now the home of Sunderland Football Club, which I will not comment on, and now has other leisure uses, including a 50-metre swimming-pool. I think you have got to adopt a very different approach to the very different communities that there are, but, unfortunately, some are much more difficult to tackle than others, and in some cases difficult priorities and difficult choices do have to be made. It could be, in some areas, in the more remote areas, the use of broadband and ICT technology could help. Q154 Mr Cummings: How would you go about developing such a strategy, what input would you have into it? Mr Clarke: We would have an input, but clearly we would have to work closely with local authorities and parish councils and some of the county areas, the voluntary sector, people like Business Links and Learning and Skills Councils. It would require very much that sort of approach. With Government Office as well, because they are responsible for things like Neighbourhood Renewal Funding, I think, particularly in the area I know best, which is in the North East, I am from the North West, pretty well-developed partnership relationships going back over many, many years. I accept it is a very, very long haul this, but I do feel there is a lot of experience, there is a lot of commitment and desire, but it will take a long time. Q155 Chris Mole: In looking at this inquiry, we have seen an awful lot of public money that has gone into coalfields from EP and through the RDAs and many other sources, so why does the IMD suggest still that the levels of deprivation are so high in so many of the coalfield areas? Mr Beattie: We are dealing with major structural changes here. What we are doing through the money which has gone into the Coalfields Programme, we may be operating on sites on programmes and looking at land reclamation but what really we are trying to do is bring around a complete change in the nature of the coalfield communities, tackling, through economic regeneration, really difficult, intransigent issues, like health, education, training, the whole package of community measures. I think it is moderately easy to bring forward change in the physical infrastructure but the social and the employment and training background to all this is going to take a lot longer to do. I think those changes are all well in place now, but much of the money we have been spending was designed to create a new, solid, economic base for the coalfield and is pitching at a period still some years away. Q156 Chris Mole: How many is some years away? Mr Beattie: We are looking at the completion of the 86 sites by March 2007, the 100 sites by 2012, and certainly by 2012 we will expect all of the outputs that we have set ourselves for the 100 sites to have been delivered, including the jobs, including the training. I think that, inevitably, many of these outputs are rear-ended, they tend to come up towards the end of the programme because the regeneration and the physical work needs to go in first. It is cost up front and then the social benefits tend to follow later. Mr Briggs: To some extent, I think we need also to retreat to economist territory and ask ourselves about the hypothesis as to what would have happened if this had not been done. I think much of the evidence over the last generation in the developed world generally is that income and social inequalities have been growing, and that there are certain dynamics within the growth of developed economies which are continuing to suggest that is really a big challenge, to reduce rather than see inequalities increasing. Q157 Chris Mole: You are saying it would have been even more stark? Mr Briggs: I think there is very good evidence that, without interventions, things would have been much worse. Also, it is fair to say, having said that, and I am the last to suggest that public expenditure is the answer to each and every problem, that in the East Midlands the budget of the Development Agency is £120 million a year, the GDP of the economy is £50 billion per annum. We are very conscious of that, and that is not a plea for lots and lots more money by way of intervention, but I think we need to look at the way in which that public money is spent efficiently to effect at the margin, but make important differences at the margin in the way in which our economy is flourishing. It seems to me, we have got three separate challenges that we are attacking here, in relation to the coalfields. There is the environmental depredation, caused by both the industry and the way in which we saw and regulated those things over the last century or more. There is the whole set of social questions, which we prefer to pose around economic inclusion, if you like, ways in which you draw people in to a lively and vibrant economy, and there are economic futures themselves. I think, there, taking up a line of questioning that was part of the previous witness discussion, that is not restricted to the coalfields. There is a constant process of change and you are looking to try to make sure that, as far as possible, you equip people not simply to react to that change, people or businesses, but to get ahead of the game, and really that is about the degree to which innovation and creativity are practical possibilities for business and individuals. Mr Beattie: Nor should we denigrate the enormous amount which has been achieved by the money spent to date. Every day of the first seven years of the programme, as our evidence showed, nearly four jobs have been created, an acre of land reclaimed and 175 square metres of floor space brought back into use. That is pretty impressive for the first seven years of a ten-year programme. Q158 Chris Mole: Looking at how the Single Regeneration Budget is coming to a close, with the advent of the RDAs' single pot, how do you, as RDAs, seek to fill the funding gap for social regeneration programmes, because some of the practitioners involved in this area clearly are concerned to see that it is coming to an end in a ring-fenced way? Mr Clarke: All Regional Development Agencies have a lead role with different parts of central government, and One NorthEast has a lead role as of 1 October with ODPM. We are producing papers at the moment for our own national network, looking at the very issue that you have just talked about but trying not to talk just about the issue of the Single Regeneration Budget coming to an end, what next, trying to look more at economic inclusion and exclusion issues. I think, from my point of view, as a starting-point, what would be valuable, and this goes way beyond RDAs, would be to look at all of the various initiatives which there have been, or are currently, which are focused on social regeneration. You could include Neighbourhood Renewal Funding, if you went back possibly City Challenge, which I know affected only a number of coalfield areas, also New Deal for Communities and Pathfinder, and carried out a really hard-headed analysis as to which of those initiatives had led to really long-term, sustained improvements, which had not, and what the impact of them was. Therefore, just to start thinking about what we need to put in place to replace the demise of SRB funding, I think, is only a partial issue. I think there is a much bigger issue to look at, which is tied in with the point which was made earlier about the need to streamline the number of different initiatives and the different number of partnerships which are set up to do it. Q159 Chris Mole: Are you looking at things like cross-thematic solutions, which allow you to address the social economy and getting people into work in a traditional sort of way? Mr Clarke: I will try. I think we need to tie in all these things far more effectively and look at those things which have worked in different parts of the country and have led to a real, sustained improvement over a long period of time, perhaps learn the lessons from the things which have not worked so well. Also to look to improve the quality of the various regeneration delivery agencies that there are, because there is some evidence, I think, that there is a lot of money being spent on administration and management. Q160 Chris Mole: Consultants? Mr Clarke: Not just consultants, people who are responsible for managing programmes. I would like to see rather more people at the delivery end, at the sharp end of delivery, than fewer of them. I think there is a need to take a broader perspective on this. Q161 Chris Mole: Perhaps you would like to say something more about the role that you see for the social economy then in supporting regeneration in your region, perhaps with particular relevance for the coalfields? Mr Clarke: In my particular region, the social enterprise component has always been very, very important, although mixed, in terms of its effectiveness. There is an issue perhaps about capacity-building in different parts of the social enterprise area, and the voluntary sector more broadly, things like intermediate labour markets, community businesses, and so on, co-operatives, in the past. There have been some very successful examples in those areas, there have been others which have not been so successful. I think there is an important contribution which that needs to play with in the region. I think it needs to be very carefully managed and we need to try to choose good-quality projects and initiatives which will make a bigger impact, managed by people who have perhaps a reasonable track record of the chances of success. Q162 Christine Russell: Can I ask you, Mr Beattie, I think actually it was Mr Briggs who said earlier that the physical regeneration comes first and the social and community regeneration follows, or was it you who said it? Mr Beattie: I said it, but I meant the two had to go hand in hand. Q163 Christine Russell: I just want to follow up on that, because the question is, how do your priorities, at English Partnerships, therefore change as more and more of the old coalfield sites are cleared up? What has happened to your focus and priorities? Mr Beattie: I was not intending to suggest we do the ground first and then look at the social later. I was making the point that the social benefits often take longer to come through, because they are about changes in people's health, their way of life. What we have discovered, as we have continued the programme, is that, firstly, with great surprise and pleasure, we have discovered that £386.5 million, which was the original programme, ring-fenced, actually is enough to do 100 sites, not the original 86. We are looking now at a gross investment by recycling that money of about £539 million, so receipts of about £232 million. In other words, we have got some £79 million extra within the ring-fence. Q164 Christine Russell: What are you going to spend that on? Mr Beattie: We are going to spend it on additional sites and on extending the life of the programme. The second thing we have learned is what I was hinting at earlier. We started with a clear portfolio of sites and a very clear set of targets for what we wanted to happen on those sites. We have learned, as it has gone along, that the problems are much more interlinked, much more complex than that. To look just at sites, rather than at the communities which use the sites, which often may be some distance away from them, to look at it in terms of land rather than in terms of social issues, is to see only a tiny part of the issue. Q165 Christine Russell: In a tangible way, what are you doing to create those linkages between the economic regeneration and the social regeneration and the community regeneration? Mr Pearson: Can I give two varying examples. One is, as Janet Bibby referred to in the earlier session, where we have an agreement now with the Coalfields Regeneration Trust, work alongside it on the programme sites to set up the structures that hopefully will carry on beyond the investment period. There is always a risk that we will concentrate all our efforts where the money is, but there are processes which need to go on beyond that timescale. Q166 Christine Russell: Bearing in mind what Mr Clarke told us, what are you doing in a practical way, rather than just setting up new structures? Mr Pearson: The structures are saying that we are, in effect, on one side of a fence, very much the supply side of the fence. There are other bodies who work on the other side of the fence who can integrate with us, so our arrangement with, say, the Coalfields Regeneration Trust. Similarly the groundwork at Frickley Colliery and Fryston is on the basis that they are helping us with the community engagement process, and they help us get people who are going to plant our trees. They may be training local people who are going to look after our sites after we have gone. Also, they are there longer term, and hopefully they will take the surge of activity while we are investing and keep that momentum going into the future. That is the way that some of the longer-term benefits will come perhaps three, four, five years after the main investment period. Mr Beattie: At the Conference Centre on the Rawdon Colliery, we saw that originally as a recreational facility. It has turned into a major educational facility. All of the local schools in the whole area use it, so now we are supporting that. Mr Briggs: Can I add to that, because I think this issue goes to the heart of what regional economic strategies themselves, which were the prime task given to the RDAs, are intended to address. It is about economic growth and progress, but progress which is environmentally and socially sustainable, so the challenge, more than anything, is not to do the lot but to interconnect all of those challenges. For example, having got agreement to that regional economic strategy, we have seen that translated also into sub-regional strategies, led again by public-private partnerships, which are a reflection of those goals. We have a lot of instruments to hand, the question is to use them effectively. The last two rounds of the Single Regeneration Budget, a powerful instrument in itself, involving £41 million of expenditure in the coalfields in the East Midlands in those last two rounds, are aligned closely with the physical regeneration programme which we share with English Partnerships, and have an emphasis on skills, infrastructure and enterprise. With the demise of the Single Regeneration Budget, I think we see that as an opportunity rather than a problem, because what we have done with each of our sub-regional partnerships is to say, "This money is now available for you to determine the priorities to make all of this work together." We think, in the end, that the only way of achieving the leadership and ownership of those priorities is for those partnerships to take the responsibility for setting the priorities. There is never quite enough to go round. Though I would say that I think in the East Midlands coalfields the problem has not been, over the last decade, a lack of money, sometimes it has been a lack of integration and carrying forward all of these streams together effectively. Q167 Christine Russell: Can I come back to you, Mr Beattie. I think you have just said that the national programme is going to continue past 2007? Mr Beattie: Correct. Q168 Christine Russell: How long do you envisage it continuing after 2007? Mr Beattie: What we have to make sure we retain is the emphasis on the targets, the deadlines, which were set originally for the Coalfield Task Force, so we are always going to have March 2007 as an important milestone. What English Partnerships has decided recently is that it is artificial to cut off projects, which often are just beginning to blossom at that point, and therefore we will be willing to continue our investment beyond then. We are looking currently, since it is important to have a time limit of some kind, not to let it just move on ad infinitum, at probably the period between 2007 and 2012 as when we will be running it down. I should say, in this respect, incidentally, that the flexibility that Lord Rooker announced in September last year, for English Partnerships to spend its total programme money much more widely than just on the sites, has been an important building-block on that. Without that, we would have had to restrict ourselves to the sites and to quite a tight deadline. Q169 Christine Russell: You have widened the objectives? Mr Beattie: Lord Rooker has widened the objectives and we have widened our ambition. Mr Pearson: It is important to note though that 12 sites entered the programme only in 2002, and they are quite complex sites to bring forward. Q170 Christine Russell: Are they concentrated in one area? Mr Pearson: No, they are dotted around the country. They are a full spread. Also we do have a reserve list of 13 sites and, more recently, following the Selby Coalfields Task Force, we were asked to consider six other UK Coal sites as reserves, in the event that UK Coal do not rest fully in line with their commitments. So there is still quite a task to do. Q171 Mr Betts: Can you persuade us that you have got a good working relationship with the local authorities in looking at the priorities of sites on which you are going to carry out work? I understand that, when the Committee went to Islington, officers there were complaining they were not quite sure how you arrived at which sites you were going to do work on, and the local authorities often had different priorities. Mr Pearson: I can take two examples there. I cannot speak for the Easington example. In the case of recent sites coming into the programme, such as Silverdale Colliery, actually Staffordshire County Council chair the project meeting, we put them in the lead position there, such that we can be clear that our work integrates with the work that they are doing there and it is brought forward in the right way. We will find ways. Recently, on (Tier ?) Frickley Colliery, Wakefield Council brought together all of the partners and we went round the whole area before we started even looking at the site, just to find a way that we do work very closely with the local authority. All of the recent examples now, particularly when we are looking at flexibility within the programme, the key is to start working very effectively with that local authority. Q172 Mr Betts: Why did not Easington raise that issue? Mr Pearson: That I do not know. Q173 Andrew Bennett: Can I just pursue it. I thought it was absolutely disgraceful, at Easington we saw six factories that you had built 18 months after the Council obviously had done nothing to consult about it? Mr Clarke: I cannot comment about the six specific factory units that you are talking about, although I have been on a tour of Easington and seen the Enterprise Zone sites, and there is the big retail development, obviously, within Easington. Again, if you start from the regional perspective then strategic sites are established through regional planning guidance, which tends to be led by the Regional Assembly in each area, so that is a starting-point for any new strategic sites that come forward for employment creation. In the North East, because there is European money available as well, there was a definition of strategic sites which involved the creation of at least 1,000 jobs, and that was a further way of defining which sites should be prioritised for which types of investment. Beyond that, at regional level, Easington will have had some sort of input to the Durham-based sub-regional partnership, and I do not know why and when, within the Durham sub-regional partnership, different priorities were chosen so I cannot comment on that, I am afraid. I am meeting next week the Chief Executive, whom I know very well, of Easington. That does not help you today, I am afraid, but in terms of that specific question on that specific site I do not know the answer. Q174 Chairman: Perhaps you could let us know? Mr Clarke: Yes. Mr Beattie: I was going to suggest that, if we can get together and send the Committee a letter, with refinements, particularly in relation to those units, we will do so. Mr Briggs: Can I add a slightly provocative rider to that. In the East Midlands, the fragmentation of the local authority structure in the coalfield area is a major problem that we have had to overcome in a variety of ways, because the tendency to seek a whole series of trophies out of the funding programmes which are available has not done the area a great service. Q175 Mr Betts: It is all the local authorities' fault? Mr Briggs: Absolutely not, they are an important part of the solution as well as part of the problem. I am confident that with the alliance sub-regional partnership, in which the local authorities participate fully, we are developing the vision and leadership we need for the area. Q176 Mr Betts: Clearly, you are generating income, and you talked about the services that are being created by the sale of land. Is there any way in which you relate the sale of specific sites into the money that is provided for that particular area, so they can see some return for the land that has been sold in that locality? Mr Beattie: No, we do not. The logic of the national programme is that the sites with a positive value cross-subsidise those which have a negative value and need proportionally more spent on them. What we do have at the start of every site is a very clear idea, worked out with the local authority and in consultation with local people, about what is going to happen on that site, and we deliver that objective. Sometimes it takes more money than we expected, in which case we will spend that money, sometimes we do it for less, but the logic of the programme is that we are working within a national ring-fence and we deliver the targets we set ourselves at the beginning. Mr Pearson: You will find that in any area there are some sites which are employment creators and there are some which are just totally open spaces. What we do find is that the ones which create the receipts are helping to pay for the ones which do not create any receipts at all because predominantly they are open space. Q177 Christine Russell: Can I move on to the numbers of jobs which have been created. I can understand the point which you have emphasised this afternoon that the physical regeneration has to come first, but we are now nine years on from the creation of the programme, which had the aim of creating 42,000 jobs, but to date only about a fifth of those, fewer than 9,000, have been created. Are you disappointed by that number? Mr Beattie: No. To March, 8,571 jobs had been created, but the important figure there is that the 51 sites on which work is already underway are forecast to deliver 91 per cent of our 38,000 job target. In other words, the work is going on now on the units which will create 91 per cent of our final jobs target. We hope very much, we confidently predict, that we will exceed that jobs target, and some of the completion work which is coming in now is showing that we are exceeding our jobs targets. For instance, at Rotherham, Manvers, we have just done a completion report. That was predicted to bring in 2,182 jobs and actually 2,516 jobs have been created there. Q178 Christine Russell: Your priority has been to restore the sites with the greatest capacity to deliver jobs? Mr Beattie: The first 51 include the greatest job-creating potential, yes. Q179 Christine Russell: I am not sure whether it is you or your colleagues but can we move on to the composition and the types of jobs. What are your views, as the Chief Executives of the RDAs, about the types and the quality of the jobs which have been created so far? Mr Briggs: I think job creation, though clearly an important target, certainly from the East Midlands' point of view, is only one of the ones we are keeping an eye on. Unemployment in the East Midlands coalfields area has fallen by more than 20 per cent over the last five years to something like 10,000 in all now, a rate of about five per cent. Our biggest worry is that the best estimates of the rate of GDP growth per annum in the coalfields area put it at round about 1.7 per cent per annum, compared with a regional average of 2.5 per cent. Part of the answer, I think, to what is implicit in your question, is about the quality of jobs which are being provided there. Again, I think it was Trevor who said earlier on there is a really serious, longer-term challenge in raising aspirations, in terms of skills levels and in terms of levels of enterprise, in the former coalfields area. There are quick fixes, sort of, available but they are dangerous, as we know. Inward investment, for very understandable reasons, was given a high profile initially in this response. I will take just one example, in the East Midlands area, of Johnson Controls, a supplier to Toyota, who came into Mansfield, provided 400 jobs when they were needed, and they took substantial numbers from former mining communities, but now have moved off to the Czech Republic. We have to be very careful, on the one hand, not to say, "Sorry, this is all five or ten years down the line; wait while we get the levels of enterprise right." There has to be an initial response, but we have to be very, very careful that we do not actually put all of our eggs in a basket which is going to let people down again in ten years' time. I think that is fundamentally about rebuilding the confidence of those communities and raising the aspirations, and that really is a medium- to long-term task. We work hard at it day by day, but it is not going to happen in two or three years. Q180 Christine Russell: Do you agree, Mr Clarke? Mr Clarke: I do. There is a different context in the North East, but our overall objective, which is wider than the coalfield communities, is to create a strong economy in the North East, with a much stronger private sector, because, as a proportion of the number of jobs in the North East, the public sector is very, very dominant and we need to create a stronger private sector. Q181 Christine Russell: Have you done an analysis of who has taken these new jobs? Is it the case that the miners are still sitting at home and, in fact, it is the women who are going out, maybe having two or three low-paid jobs, insecure jobs, part-time jobs? Mr Clarke: I think there is a mixture, because, although in the North East we are looking to create high value added jobs in new industries in new sectors, some of the so-called more traditional industries have had something of a renaissance recently. Ship-building and offshore oil are providing a significant number of jobs, mainly for men, on the Rivers Tyne and Tees, in particular, and there is some evidence that people travel some distance for those types of jobs way beyond the region as well. Also, there will be jobs which probably are more likely to be taken possibly by younger people and by women, I am thinking of call centre jobs, which itself is quite a live issue at the moment nationally and not just within the North East. Also jobs have been created in retailing and in tourism, where there will be a mixture of people who are gaining those opportunities. What seems to be much, much more of a long-term process in the North East is to create the more entrepreneurial culture which really we have been attempting to do for many years, to encourage more people to set up in businesses. What we have found is that people, once set up in businesses, tend to stay in business for about as long as anybody else, but we have far fewer people coming forward to set up in the first place, so that is another area of job opportunity. Q182 Christine Russell: Do we know actually how many of those 8,000-plus new jobs have been taken by ex-miners? Do you know that? Mr Clarke: I do not. I know that in the North East 2,300 jobs is what contributed to that total. I think, in terms of the North East contributing to the overall total, that is quite significant, and some of them are in the sectors which I talked about. Q183 Christine Russell: Do you know how many of those new jobs really are new and have not been just relocations from somewhere else, genuinely new? Mr Clarke: These particular ones are new. The Enterprise Zones in particular, I think, in some cases, led to brand-new investment from outside or abroad, and in other cases led to companies jumping across boundaries, whereas I do not think there is any evidence, so far, that has happened in either East Durham or Northumberland. Mr Briggs: The gender balance issue looks a little bit different in the East Midlands former coalfield, because the decline in coal has been mirrored by the decline in the clothing and textiles industry, which was substantially female employees, so we have had to cope with both. In terms of your question as to whether the incoming jobs are being taken by members of the local community, if you look at an area like Sherwood Park, an Enterprise Zone, by Junction 27 of the M1, employing now about 3,000, on best estimates, just below half of the people employed there are drawn from local communities. That is something on which we are working very hard, because there are issues about preparing people in terms of the skills that they require and transport links, which often, historically, have been overlooked. I think it is one of the reasons for physical regeneration now, and this programme will fail unless it is embedded in processes of social and economic regeneration, in a way that 25 years ago most certainly we would not have done. I am encouraged. Q184 Christine Russell: Is it easier to persuade a woman who was employed in a textile mill to take a job in a call centre than to persuade a man who worked down the pit? Mr Briggs: It is not so much necessarily about the job, it is about the whole pattern of working life. Q185 Christine Russell: It is culture and attitudes? Mr Briggs: Yes, it is culture and attitudes. I will not quote my example but there is a good one, and actually it is as much about basic skills and culture as it is about simply adaptability to the new working environment. Q186 Mr Cummings: Can you tell the Committee how important that Enterprise Zone is in attracting businesses to coalfield areas? Mr Clarke: We have had, I think, six Enterprise Zones overall in the North East over time and two of them are current. One of them is the one in East Durham that you will know about, and the other one is in North Tyneside. The one in East Durham has had success in terms of the retail development, Dalton Flatts, I think, but the other sites which exist have had a significant amount of infrastructure put in. In fact, six of the units that you talked about earlier, the ones you were talking to English Partnerships about, are on those particular sites, and also in the Enterprise Zone we have adopted a partnership approach with Durham County Council, Easington and One NorthEast. I would say, at least within the North East, the two Enterprise Zones that remain, one of them is focused on the coalfield area. The problem with the Northumberland area, in a sense, is that it has never had an Enterprise Zone and has never had a number of the other regeneration initiatives, so what we are trying to do is connect the Northumberland coalfields better into the Enterprise Zone which exists in North Tyneside. That is a different challenge, it is more about the transport links. Q187 Mr Cummings: If the Enterprise Zones expire in 2005, which you envisage happening, will that affect significantly the regeneration of the coalfields? Mr Clarke: Certainly, we will have to make sure that the Easington and East Durham Enterprise Zone has made most use of the number of years it has been a Zone, because it is very unlikely, I think, if at all, that there will be any Enterprise Zones in the future, according to EU regulations and the view of the Treasury as well. I think it is to maximise what is there, while it is there, in Durham. Mr Briggs: Enterprise Zones have been important but they are not cost free, so part of the question, as they expire, is whether that resource might be made available in a different form. My personal view is that there is some attraction to that sort of geographical targeting, but it makes sense only within the context of social and economic and skills programmes of the sort I have described already. The big flaw, I think, with Enterprise Zones, as they developed through the ages, most certainly, was that they looked at the physical regeneration aspect. In the East Midlands the best example perhaps is Corby, the former steel town, which we have now moved back in partnership with English Partnerships to an urban regeneration company, because the physical regeneration challenge was addressed but most of the challenges around the social structure of Corby and the skills need, the needs of the community itself, were bypassed by Enterprise Zones. It has to be within a wider context. Q188 Mr Cummings: The Committee have been told, via your submissions, that you have developed Network Space with the private sector to promote small businesses but are taking place only in areas which are commercially attractive. What are you doing to ensure that the space is provided in areas with the highest levels of deprivation? Mr Beattie: First of all, of course, Network Space is not the only way we provide space within the coalfields. We have to remember that Network Space is a private sector vehicle, it is generating additional private sector investment into the coalfields, it is a separate private sector company. English Partnerships can set the parameters within which it operates, making sure that it delivers its units within the coalfields, setting down the basic structure within it, which it invests. We cannot dictate to it and tell it where to invest and where not to invest. What we can do is make sure that additional private sector money supports and strengthens our own investment in providing workshop units, where maybe the private sector is less willing to go. Mr Pearson: There are good examples elsewhere where the RDA, on top of the Coalfield Programme investment, has put in units in some of the difficult areas, such as at Grimethorpe, such as at Princess Royal in the Forest of Dean and also Sherwood Energy Village in the EMDA area. Mr Briggs: I think that is a very important point. From the Development Agencies' point of view, and our sub-regional point of view, the Coalfields Programme is only part of a bigger picture and there is plenty of opportunity to reinforce through using other streams of funding. Q189 Mr Cummings: To what extent have problems with the transport infrastructure held back development in coalfield areas? Mr Clarke: There is quite a debate at the moment in the North East about the transport infrastructure and this criterion which is used by the Treasury, I think, based on congestion. Certainly in the North East I think transport infrastructure is an issue, because, relatively speaking, it is seen not to have possibly the same congestion problems as other parts of the country, therefore the level of investment that goes into transport infrastructure is somewhat less. Certainly some notice has been taken of that recently with the Northumberland/North Tyneside Corridor of Opportunity and the proposals to have another Tyne crossing. I think that is one issue which will help, because to try to tie in some of the rural coalfield areas and also in Durham, to connect East Durham across into the rest of the region, does require improved transport infrastructure, and at the moment that is holding back. Perhaps one suggestion in that area. As Regional Development Agencies, we all have a Public Service Agreement target with three government departments, ODPM, DTI and the Treasury, but the Department for Transport and DEFRA and DfES are not party to that. If we are to close some of the regional disparities then perhaps those other parts of Government, and Transport is the one that you mentioned, could be part of that and then they might take a broader view of transport infrastructure rather than base it just on congestion problems and difficulties. I think there is some evidence that it does hold back some of the coalfields. Q190 Mr Cummings: Are you doing anything with that evidence? Mr Clarke: Yes. We have been talking to senior civil servants and permanent secretaries recently and doing some lobbying somewhat behind the scenes, because, as Regional Development Agencies, we are non-departmental public bodies, so clearly do it in a certain way, but the Regional Assembly and local politicians also are lobbying hard on the issue. Chairman: Can I ask, if you have any other comments on that, if you could let us have a note on it, because I want to move on now as we are getting short of time. Q191 Andrew Bennett: Very briefly, on housing, really to English Partnerships. Last week we went up to various sites in Easington and in Yorkshire and we saw some appalling housing properties that were empty, and almost across the road there were sites on which you were doing some work. Surely, the whole question of raising the morale of communities means you have got to start to tackle this problem of empty homes? Mr Pearson: Yes, I think we would agree totally, and if it is very much the situation where, for example, there are programmes which improve skills but do not improve the standard of the housing then that does create instability in the community, people are saying "Why should I live there any more?" What we have done, you will be aware of the recent good example of us working together with EMDA and the local authorities in the Meden Valley Partnership. It was very clear that to invest a lot of money in, say, Shirebrook Colliery, where we are investing £24 million, but not deal with the old model village right next-door to it, that is just not fitting the regeneration programme together well. Q192 Andrew Bennett: You are telling me that you have done some good work in the Meden Valley, what you are saying is you are hoping to do some good work, there is not much to see on the ground there yet, is there? Mr Beattie: No. It started recently, but we will integrate that with the proven investment. Elsewhere, what we have done recently is, through the local authorities, on behalf of ODPM, mapped other areas of low demand within the coal communities. Q193 Andrew Bennett: Everybody knows where they are, you can see them dead easily, can you not? What are you going to do about them? Mr Pearson: The next step is we will sit down with the Regional Housing Board and work with them and offer our support to them. Q194 Andrew Bennett: People are going to have to put up with empty houses next-door, all the problems of that, while you do a bit of talking? Mr Beattie: No. The work at Meden Valley is on the ground now. Q195 Andrew Bennett: Where else is it on the ground then? Mr Beattie: Overall, we have created 4,500 housing units, and the important point about that is that those have been created alongside refurbishment of existing units. Q196 Andrew Bennett: How many have been refurbished? Mr Beattie: I have not got those figures but I could let the Committee know. The Regional Housing Boards hold the key to this. We want to see mainstream, Regional Housing Board money supporting decent home standards in the coalfields and refurbishment in the coalfields, to go alongside our resource, which inevitably tends to focus more on new development. We must bring these two together and the Regional Housing Boards are the answer. Mr Pearson: I think also it is important to say that merely dealing with a pocket of housing by itself will not bring about change in that area. Some of the things that we do with the programme sites, with other investments, we raise the overall value equation in that area, which can start to address this. Q197 Andrew Bennett: If you are not careful, you raise the standards and expectations of people in the community, so they simply move out, more and more, of the terraced houses, and some get actually a worse problem, do they not? Mr Pearson: I think the aim for the future should be to improve the mix in those areas, to give people an opportunity to stay in their area, to move up the housing ladder, in some cases. In some cases, that may mean actually changing totally the structure and the amount of houses in that area. Mr Briggs: The timing is not a lack of work, and I emphasise that. I think the legacy, particularly the role that private landlords play, means that Meden Valley has taken us two years longer to get off the ground than we would have wished. There is not the option of walking away from communities in the UK, whatever the North American models seem to suggest sometimes, and it is something that absolutely we are focused on, bringing Shirebrook and communities like it back to life, not moving on. Q198 Chris Mole: Mr Beattie, you mentioned Corby just now. Do coalfields still need to be considered as a special case, or should they not be treated like any other disadvantaged area with a former industry, like steel, or something? Mr Beattie: Certainly they do still need to be treated as a special case, but it is horses for courses. We are talking about the English Partnerships Coalfield Programme. That was a programme which the Coalfield Task Force identified as being uniquely related to the unique problems in the coalfields, which are a combination of physical isolation, infrastructure problems, health problems, education, training and contaminated land problems. I was on the Coalfield Task Force, and back then, in 1998, the first chapter was 'Why the coalfields are special' and it was that unique concentration which did not exist anywhere else. In the steel communities, for instance, there is not the same degree of physical isolation. As Martin said earlier, Martin and I both are on the urban regeneration company for Corby, where the model, the vehicle, the more appropriate vehicle, is an urban regeneration company. The coalfields remain very special in that unique combination of factors. We are seven years into a ten-year programme, we need to keep the momentum going to complete what we started. Mr Briggs: Trevor jumped in, I think, to make sure that I took the correct line on the picture. I endorse entirely everything he said, of course. I would simply add that one of our objectives for our former coalfields area is to stop people calling it the coalfields area, and that is an ambition that we have said, before we get to that 2010 which features in the regional economic strategy, we want this area no longer to be known by the soubriquet the Coalfields Alliance, or whatever. I think there is a tradition and a heritage to be proud of, but it is hugely important that in all of these areas people are setting their agenda and vision by what is to come, rather than where they have come from. Actually, it is psychologically a very important shift. Q199 Chris Mole: The former call centre communities as well, I should think? Mr Briggs: We have managed largely to avoid that trap, so far. Chairman: On that note, gentlemen, thank you very much for your evidence. We do appreciate it. Thank you. Memoranda submitted by Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, Department for Education and Skills and Department of Health Examination of Witnesses Witnesses: RT HON LORD ROOKER, a Member of the House of Lords, Minister of State for Regeneration and Regional Development, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister; MISS MELANIE JOHNSON, a Member of the House, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Public Health), Department of Health; and RT HON MARGARET HODGE MBE, a Member of the House, Minister of State for Children, Department for Education and Skills; examined. Q200 Chairman: Good evening, colleagues. Does anyone want to make a statement, before we start, and I think, for the record, we had better have introductions, please? Margaret Hodge: Margaret Hodge. I am the Minister for Children, Young People and Families in the Department for Education and Skills. Lord Rooker: Jeff Rooker, representing ODPM. Miss Johnson: I am Melanie Johnson. I am the Minister for Public Health in the Department of Health. Chairman: Thank you. The first question is on health. Q201 Andrew Bennett: When we were looking particularly at some of these areas last week, the most striking thing everyone said was that really poor health was the one thing that now identified the coalfield areas. Why is this? Miss Johnson: I am sure it is as a result of poverty and deprivation over many, many decades, and the fact that we know and the previous governments indeed have known for a long time that deprivation is a major cause of ill-health, along with many other social inequalities, and health is no different from that. Q202 Andrew Bennett: What are the particular problems of the coalfield areas, as far as health is concerned? Miss Johnson: Most of the coalfield areas, actually I think all of the coalfield areas, are in the bottom fifth, in terms of health inequalities, which we have been looking at recently, in terms of our programme to address health inequalities. There are about 70-odd constituency areas which form the bottom 20 per cent, in terms of health inequalities, and the furthest which need to make the most progress. That bottom 20 per cent includes the 20-odd constituencies which I think feature on the coalfields list, as it were, of areas which have some coalfield or mining interests. Q203 Andrew Bennett: There are some particular health problems, are there not, in mining areas? Miss Johnson: There are. Some are related obviously to the history of mining, but I think many also related to more general problems of deprivation, which I mentioned earlier on. There are still problems about things like heart disease and smoking and issues like that, which are common to a lot of the areas which have health inequalities. Q204 Andrew Bennett: There are particular problems from working down the pits, are there not? Miss Johnson: There will be some particular problems from working down the pits, indeed. Q205 Andrew Bennett: Treating some of those conditions or treating people with other problems but exacerbated by having worked down the pit is expensive, is it not? Miss Johnson: Certainly it can be, yes. Q206 Andrew Bennett: Why is it that Easington, for example, gets 20 per cent less of a budget than other health authorities? Miss Johnson: There are two areas which have an interesting, much lower rate than others, in relation to their budget. One of those is Barking/Dagenham, funnily enough, and the other is Easington. They have the biggest issues in terms of their funding. The Department of Health has recognised that there is an issue there and is moving gradually to address the inequalities in funding. Q207 Andrew Bennett: Easington went up from about 75 per cent of the national to about 80 per cent. That is hardly moving fast, is it? Miss Johnson: In terms of where Easington is, progress is made by about six per cent over the next couple of years, by 2005-06 Easington will be 16 per cent under the funding target. It will be alone in being as low as that, all the other coalfield areas, one or two of them are above target currently, some of them are on target and some of them are a few percentage under. Easington is indeed a special case, and you are right to mention it in that context. I am sure John will be mentioning it. In terms of Barking and Dagenham, that is the only one which is even vaguely in something like the same ball park. Q208 Andrew Bennett: We have had it put to us, as far as Yorkshire was concerned, that particularly there was the problem of getting good palliative treatment for some of the old miners. They are coming up with fairly imaginative schemes to put in extra provision so that you have got palliative help for people in those areas which will help things like reducing bed-blocking, those sorts of things. What is the Department doing to help? Miss Johnson: Overall, Easington is receiving an increase of nearly £36 million over the three years. Q209 Andrew Bennett: I was moving on from Easington, to help Yorkshire particularly? Miss Johnson: To Yorkshire particularly, overall, in palliative care, there has been an additional £50 million allocated recently for palliative care. That was done through a partnership group who decided which projects around the country would be most beneficial, and that money has been divided up. I am afraid I do not have the figures for Yorkshire on that, but some of Yorkshire will have benefited from that. Really most areas in the country benefited in some way or another. That is buying something like an extra 70 consultants nationally in palliative care and a large number of additional nurse specialists as well. Q210 Andrew Bennett: What is being done for younger ex-miners to get them back to work, in terms of improving their health? Miss Johnson: I am very interested by your inquiry and your interest in this subject, because I think it is a very interesting subject. We have a programme to tackle health inequalities, and looking through the figures that we have on health inequalities it shows that in some of these areas it is only either men or women who are in the bottom 20 per cent, which really is quite an interesting feature, I think. It is not something I had appreciated until I looked through the coalfields area. In some areas, for example, in Rotherham, the men are not in the lowest fifth of life expectancy at birth but the women are, so there are differences from one population to another, although it has to be said that, the vast majority of these, they are in the lowest for both men and women. There are some differences between different areas. Certainly it is a matter for the PCTs to take forward. We are looking to PCTs for the additional funding that they have got, which ranges around the average of 30 per cent, although in some of these areas, like Easington, that is 40 per cent or so extra. Q211 Andrew Bennett: You are talking about the statistics. What are you hoping to do for individuals who perhaps for the first 20 years of their working life worked down the pits and, as a result of that, they have already got damaged health? Are you going to have schemes which will get them fit enough to be back in work? Miss Johnson: I am sure it depends on the nature of their ailments as to whether that is possible, in some cases it may well not be possible. In terms of looking at what is being done, the future work, obviously it depends also on the employment opportunities which can be created, and that is not my ministerial area, and I am sure that Jeff, or others, would be better placed to comment on it. In terms of what we are doing to do that, we have got this focus on the bottom 20 per cent. Traditionally, those inequalities have been seen as affecting a smaller number of vulnerable people. What we are saying is that they are about some problems of some considerable magnitude, and we must look at mainstreaming the health inequalities issues in the areas where they are the greatest and tackling all the aspects of those. That can be occupation-related issues, where there may be a prospect of people recovering sufficiently to work, if the right kind of employment is around, or not, and obviously a lot of other things. Smoking, for example, is a big cause of health problems in these areas and where, for example, if I can go back to Easington, just briefly, they have made a very large amount of progress in relation to the rate of quitters they have got, from the smoking cessation. They are tackling quite a lot of these issues. They are looking at things like falls prevention, they are looking at reducing the under-18 conception rate. There has been a reduction in the coronary heart disease rate. There have been developments in mental health services. There are things like Sure Start, their Healthy Living Centre programme, a whole range of provisions. Obviously GPs and the PCT need to reflect the health needs of their individual areas, and that is true whether it is in Easington or in some of the other areas that you are talking about. Chairman: That might be the point to bring in John Cummings, who has some questions to ask and, from what you have just said, will have a good answer. Q212 Mr Cummings: It is an extremely impressive list, Minister, which you have just related to the Committee, and I think all congratulations are due to the Easington Primary Care Trust who have managed to make these advances, despite - despite - being 20 per cent under target, whilst at the same time Westminster is 136 per cent above target. You are saying that they are moving towards 16 per cent below target, come the year 2005-06. At that rate of progress, it is going to be 20 years before we reach target, at a time when one in four deaths in Easington are due to heart disease. Cancer deaths in Easington, twice the national average. Cirrhosis of the liver, 60 per cent higher in Easington. Overall serious mental health, 33 per cent higher in Easington. I could go on with a litany of misfortunes, and yet we are faced still with this huge shortfall, with no guarantees whatsoever, within a timescale of not ever reaching it. The problems of Easington Primary Care Trust funding are engraved on my heart now, basically, and we do not seem to be receiving any form of succour whatsoever as to where we are going in the future. Can you please indicate when we will reach target, not above target, just target? Miss Johnson: As I said, we inherited a very varied pattern of spending, and because of that very varied pattern it is not possible to adjust everybody immediately, overnight, to the position of being on target, but there is a gradual adjustment going on over time. What that shows is that currently we will have eased Easington's distance by six per cent and that will be the result of them receiving an increase of nearly £36 million over a three-year period and the increase will be 40.5 per cent over that period, which compares with an average for all PCTs of just under 31 per cent, so there is a well above average increase. In fact, Easington, the PCT will receive the sixth largest increase of all PCTs in England over that period. We are adjusting that as quickly as we can, but the pattern of it, I understand, it is not possible to understand where that pattern came from, it comes from a long way back historically, probably well before the present Government. Q213 Mr Cummings: In case anyone is misunderstanding when I am talking about Easington, Easington Primary Care Trust, of course, encompasses two constituencies, Easington and Sedgefield. Miss Johnson: Indeed. The fact is that the health of that population is being addressed in the things that the PCT are doing, which I have listed already, which show that they are focusing on the problems, they are endeavouring to address the problems that they have got. The health inequalities which have given rise to those problems will not be tackled overnight, because part of it is the way in which young people grew up, the circumstances under which they grew up, and we are talking now about people often in their later years who have had many years of ill-health. What we can do for those people is endeavour to address that, but the trend will only really be tackled as we get people into better and safer jobs in the future, better nutrition when they are younger, better healthcare when they are younger. The sort of preventative work which the Government is committed to doing both through the Department of Health and through things like Sure Start and the other programmes that we have got, which focus very much on putting in the investment to young people so that actually they do not end up so unhealthy as they get older. At the moment, what we are doing in terms of Easington is making sure that the service provision is as good as it can be. The PCT, I think a 40 per cent increase in funding is a huge increase for anyone to deal with over a three-year period, so, in actual fact, they should be able to get an awful lot more provision out of that 40 per cent. Q214 Mr Cummings: Minister, let us not forget the people who have given a lifetime of work to the industry and to the nation. By all means embark on new initiatives to try to attract younger people away from an unhealthy living style and health style, but let us not forget those many tens of thousands of people in Easington who are reliant upon us to provide adequate resources to ensure that at least they live the rest of their days in some peace and with dignity? Miss Johnson: I think I am agreeing with you, in the sense in which I think those people need to benefit from good healthcare. That is why the Government is making the major investment it is and why that is well above average in Easington, to recognise the fact that more progress needs to be made and there are great demands there. In terms of what we are doing on that, overall, all the programmes that we are running, whether it is on cancer, where we have seen a ten per cent reduction in deaths from cancer nationwide, reductions in coronary heart disease and deaths from coronary heart disease, whatever it is, Easington will benefit from those and is benefiting from them. The PCT focus shows that actually it is looking at the right issues to help the health of the middle-aged and older population in Easington. Q215 Christine Russell: Can we move on to education, Minister. I am sure you will be aware that there are really very low levels of educational achievement in many of the schools in the coalfield community and really quite low levels of qualifications of adults in those communities. Can you tell me how long you believe it will be, and how we are going to get there, to close that gap between education in the coalfields community and in your average community elsewhere in the UK? Margaret Hodge: The results I have got show that we are starting to close that gap, so we are starting to make headway. I do not know if one can pick up any figures, but if we took Key Stage Two, for example, in English, level four, the improvement in all the coalfield communities was 11.4 per cent since 1998, it is 10.7 per cent nationally. In Maths level four, Key Stage Two, 14.8 per cent coalfield communities, 14.1 per cent nationally. Key Stage Three, the gap reduced, the gap between the performance in the coalfield communities and elsewhere reduced from 4.3 per cent in 1998 to 3.3 per cent. Key Stage Four, the gap reduced from 5.9 per cent in 1998 to 5.4 per cent. We are making progress, I think, although we have got a long way to go still. What are we doing to get a further decrease in the gap? There are a lot of targeted programmes, Excellence in Cities, Education Action Zones, Excellence Clusters, there is a new one announced in the coalfield communities this September, so that targets money in there. The Leadership Investment Grant, for example, is the latest money that follows with those sorts of policies. We are doing things like the Sure Start programme, to which Melanie referred, which obviously is the key one at the very early years of a child's life, to ensure that you provide the appropriate response so the child can develop their potential. EMAs, which I think, in the Next Steps document, you asked for the national delivery of that, that is happening as from September 2004. There has been a redirection of resources to the coalfield communities. If I take, I am trying to think which one, which is your county authority? Q216 Christine Russell: Mine is Cheshire. It does not have coalfields, it has black and white cows. Margaret Hodge: If I take Durham, which we have been talking about, in which a number of Members will have an interest, if you look at what has happened on funding over time, since 1997 funding per pupil has increased by about 30 per cent nationally, about £880 per pupil in real terms. Durham, as an example, it has gone up £930 per pupil in real terms over that period, and there are some of the coalfield communities, taking Stoke-on-Trent as a coalfield community, for example, the increase in funding per pupil is £1,100, compared with a national average of about £880. There is a trend towards redistributing resources and trying the targeted interventions which will support a closure in the achievement gap. Q217 Christine Russell: That is all great stuff, but can I go on to ask you why you think the Coalfield Communities Campaign, therefore, should say: "The gap between performance in coalfield schools and the national average and the low level of formal qualifications amongst many adults in the coalfields brings into question the 'one size fits all' approach of much of national education policy." They go on to argue that more targeted measures are needed. You seem to have given us ample evidence that, in fact, things are improving, so why do you think the Communities Campaign should say that? Do you think they are not aware of the progress that is being made? Margaret Hodge: I think you will have to ask them. Q218 Christine Russell: They were here last time. Margaret Hodge: What I would say is, the last thing we have got is a 'one size fits all' approach. Indeed, I take completely the opposite, that if you wish to achieve greater equality you have to treat different, individual children and different communities differently. That is precisely what we are doing, which is why you have Sure Start, for example, as a targeted programme, why you have Excellence in Cities as a targeted programme, all these things, even EMAs. If you take Educational Maintenance, that is a targeted programme on children from poorer backgrounds. Obtaining real equality of outcome, and certainly proper equality of opportunities, means treating people differently, and the whole thrust of education policy is towards a much more individualised offer. For example, if we take 14-19 as an instance where we are trying really to loosen up the offer so that there is much more flexibility to meet the needs of individual children, there are eight 14-19 Pathfinders in the coalfield communities. If I take just one, there is a good one in Gateshead. There are three secondary schools and Gateshead College which have done a joint initiative around loosening up the 14-19 curriculum, and that has led to a 40 per cent increase in the number of young people who have enrolled on AS and A2. Actually, I would question, we are not doing a 'one size fits all', we are getting there and beginning to close the gap. We think closing the achievement gap is the great challenge which faces us in our Department. Q219 Christine Russell: Can I ask you about one thing in particular, which is the Specialist Schools initiative, because I am sure you are aware that really they are unrepresented in the coalfields communities. When we went to County Durham and to Yorkshire at the start of last week, we were told by a number of people to whom we spoke that this £50,000 deposit, or whatever you call it, that the school has to provide, is just so difficult to raise in communities where still there is an awful lot of deprivation and very little spare cash around? Margaret Hodge: Two things. First of all, they are not unrepresented. We have got nearly 100 Specialist Schools in the coalfield communities. The second thing to say is, it was in recognition of the difficulty which some communities face in raising the private sector contribution towards Specialist Schools that we introduced the Partnership Fund, which is about, I think it is, £3 million, it is part public, part private contribution. Schools can apply to it, and that already has been used to support over, I think, 100, 120 schools, something like that, in developing Specialist School status. Q220 Chairman: Could I just interrupt there. I understand from the Clerk that we have some difficulty in terms of timing with a couple of our Ministers, because we are running a bit late. There are a couple of ways we can handle this. We can either have another session next Monday, with all three Ministers, or I know Lord Rooker has been sitting here all afternoon. Lord Rooker: I have learned quite a lot. Q221 Chairman: If Lord Rooker wants to remain and do this session then perhaps we can do the Education and Health Ministers on another occasion, if it is vital that they have to be away? Miss Johnson: It is absolutely vital that I have to be away. Can I say that my office was told about this appointment only last week. We were told half an hour, and given half an hour, and I was not told that I was going to be here with two colleagues otherwise I would have thought half an hour was bound to be unrealistic. It is really on that basis that the diary has been constructed and reconstructed around this, so (a) I do need desperately to go now, and (b) this has not worked out very well, in terms of my arrangements. Q222 Chairman: We have some other points we want to put to the Health Department so we will try to fit that in. Miss Johnson: Yes, I think there are lots of things to be discussed, but to have me here this week and then call me back next week is really... Q223 Chairman: We will have to discuss that with the Department. Miss Johnson: I must go now, I am afraid. Q224 Chairman: I do not know what Lord Rooker and Margaret Hodge want to do? Margaret Hodge: I am supposed to have another meeting. I was told as well, I think we have all had some mixed messages that came out, so real apologies from us. I can do another ten minutes today. I would rather do that than come back, because I know next Monday is a nightmare for me. Lord Rooker: I do not want you to think I have not got anything to do. I have been out all day, but I would like to leave by seven, so I am available until seven o'clock. Q225 Chairman: I think we will talk to the Departments about having another session. Next Monday may not be possible but we will fit it in somewhat later. If Lord Rooker is willing to stay and go through his questions that will get him off the hook for next time anyway. I think it will be best if you both go now, and we will arrange something else. Miss Johnson: I am sorry about this. Chairman: We will go to Clive Betts. Q226 Mr Betts: Quite a few submissions to the inquiry suggested that there has been considerable progress in terms of regenerating the coalfield areas, but that a substantial amount of that really has been environmental regeneration, which has been quite successful so far. Would that be your impression? Lord Rooker: To be honest, having read some of the evidence that you have published, having looked at what our Department is responsible for and, of course, having been sitting listening to your previous witnesses, I would say basically the policy is working. There is still a lot to do and it is inevitable that, to start off with, environmental works would have an impact physically as a visual amenity on people. They might say, "Well, it's all environmental to start with," but, on the other hand, you want to show people there is a prospect of progress in an area, to revitalise it, i.e. "Please stay, we're going to do something about it." We will encourage other people to think about moving in, as you heard previously, with the jobs. Therefore, it is inevitable that some of the environmental works, the way that the pits were left, as it were, by the previous employers and owners, was a disgrace, and probably would have been tackled first, or be seen to be tackled first, but the master planning on all that still goes on. Attempting to do some of the long-term work, of course, does not show, as you heard earlier on, until probably towards the end of the programme. Q227 Mr Betts: Clearly, just going round the coalfields, you can see the transformation in many of them within the physical environment, but one solution, and this is very typical of others, from the Leicester Housing Association, said that despite the fact that we had £1 billion already, and the areas identified in the Coalfields Action Plan in 1998, 63 per cent of the wards in the former coalfields are still in the top 20 per cent of wards with deprivation. So the environment may be changing out of recognition, but others factors, whether it be poor health, low pay, out migration, we are not making enough progress in those areas? Lord Rooker: You could say the same could apply, at this point in measuring, to the Neighbourhood Renewal Fund areas, the 88 areas, where a similar kind of highly targeted approach is taking place, but it is very, very early. We are three or four years down the road, trying to turn back years of deprivation across a range of issues, whether it is acceptance of crime, the environment, jobs, health. Trying to measure what has happened in a short period of time is difficult and it is not going to show massive changes at this early stage, I have to say, it is unreasonable to expect it to do so. On the other hand, trying to tackle it on a very wide issue, I was conscious of the fact that whilst I was listening to the other witnesses I actually read the evidence from Easington Council. The last paragraph, paragraph 10, at the risk of quoting them out of context, they did point out that getting it all joined up, "in tackling acute deprivation has indicated the policies espoused in the Coalfield Task Force, the Policy Action Team reports, and the New Commitment to Neighbourhood Renewal are correct in exploring the inter linkages between different service areas." It is inevitable there is still a lot to do, but a lot of that is going on, and in some ways, the point you raised, for the coalfields is no different from some of the other areas. This afternoon I was in Luton, where there is a New Deal for Communities at Marsh Farm, crying out for renewal, area of deprivation, in any measure. I have to say, and this is not an excuse, it is early days in trying to measure the indicators of change, which is something we have got to do for the Treasury next year as we enter the next Spending Review. Q228 Mr Betts: Probably the Committee are getting slightly mixed messages, because that is an argument you can understand where you will get some probably quicker returns than others, in terms of the longer-term change to the whole community that is trying to be achieved. I understand that you do not want to be too oppressive with national guidance, but we got a written submission from One NorthEast where they are monitoring some of their progress on a very short-term basis, number of jobs created and safeguarded, businesses attracted, land reclaimed. Do you think you ought to be encouraging the other organisations involved in this process to take a slightly longer view, to look at a different range of monitoring targets? Lord Rooker: I think they will do. You are quite right, I do not want to be prescriptive. I refuse to send out telephone directories of advice to adults who are professionals in their field. They know what the big picture is and they know what the Government policy is and they know what both Houses have agreed, in terms of renewal policies. We are best leaving them to get on with it. I think you have heard from the range of witnesses here this afternoon, they are given the remit, they are given the resources, there is always a need for more resources, I am not denying that. On the other hand, there is a huge amount, particularly just on the Coalfields Programme alone, but that is added to by the Neighbourhood Renewal Fund and a lot of the other programmes. There is some overlap, I fully admit that, there are too many streams and sources of funding going into some areas, but we do not get the best value for it. Some people will use different indicators. The early days of trying to get renewal in these areas probably would require the measures that One NorthEast has used there in the early years. Other indicators will be relevant later on. In other words, they will not get to the other indicators unless they have got land reclamation, unless they have got some more floor space. You have heard the figure of jobs created, that is an important issue, it is nearly four jobs a day since the scheme started, in terms of jobs created, whether they may be for women or men you might argue the case, but the fact is I think you heard they are real jobs, and we are on stream to hit the target for all of the jobs by the end of the programme. People in work are more likely to be more healthy than people out of work, we know that, and you will explore this with Health, there is no question about that, there is a correlation there. Getting people into work and economically active is good for them personally as well as good for society as a whole. Those measures will come later. First of all, you need to clear the land, clear some of the rubbish housing that has been left, that is an eyesore, as Andrew pointed out, because that is a negative, if you like, for people to invest in the area where we have not cleared the houses fast enough, and clearly there is a signal to be sent there. In the early days, it is bound to be those broad indicators of what you do with the land, old buildings, clearing the spoil-heaps and getting the place up and running, with action that people can see, action on the area. Therefore, you will not affect necessarily their health, their jobs, the deprivation area, industries for the area, in the early years. Obviously, you will be able to measure it after a reasonable period and then we will see whether we are failing or not, but the indications are, at the present time, with the overall range of policies on several fronts, there is no one quick fix for this. We are moving in the right direction. True, we could move faster. Q229 Chairman: How are you monitoring the impact of these programmes? When will we know that the regeneration of the coalfields has been achieved, for instance? Lord Rooker: I wish I could give you a year for that. There are some research projects underway at the present time. There is one to be commissioned next year, to have a look, particularly on coalfields, to see where we are and how far we have got. In other words, I am not sure I am putting the correct words which actually will be asked, but, from my point of view, I must say, to ask the question, "Is this policy doing what the Government and Parliament intended it to do, at this early stage?" There is a research project to be started off, commissioned, early next year. There is some work going on at the present time which ministers will get hopefully before the end of this year, which means it is not very far away, certainly for publication next year, on looking at the areas in the country where, even in areas of low unemployment, there are still pockets of unexplained, very, very high unemployment, where three-quarters of the street are not working, as it were. That is in hot spots around the country, not just selling the coalfields but clearly they are there, but there are some in areas which are quite surprising. There is a project going on with the Social Exclusion Unit, having a look at that particular issue at the moment. Obviously we have got higher employment in the country than we have had ever, I think the figure is about 28 million, or something like that, unemployment is low, in historical terms, in recent years, but there are some real, severe pockets where we need to find out what the reasons are for that. As I say, there is a project underway on that, which hopefully we will have before the end of the year. Q230 Chairman: In a lot of those pockets, when you say high levels of unemployment, are you talking about unemployment as measured in terms of unemployment statistics, or are you talking about people out of work in terms of people out of work because of a long-term sickness benefit? Lord Rooker: A bit of both really, where you get high levels of economic inactivity, particularly with people over 50. We have got a huge number of people in this country over 50 economically inactive, some forced out with so-called early retirement schemes which seemed alright at the time, others forced out against their will. Let us face it, the best asset this country has got, like any country, is its people and their capacity to work and their willingness to work. We have got a huge number of people who would be willing and have got a capacity to work, but we have got some hot spots. When you look at the overall picture, things are looking quite good and the Government can boast rightly about the number of people in work, people might argue about the hours, but in work and economically active. We do need to look at these hot spots to see if there is something else we need to do, in terms of changing policy or adding to policy. It is not all in the areas to the North and the Midlands, there are some of these hot spots in the South East, in the so-called engine of the country, in terms of economic activities concerned. Q231 Andrew Bennett: It is nice to hear you are going to commission this piece of research, but presumably you are going to employ consultants who live in the coalfield areas, or is it consultants from somewhere like Cheltenham, or somewhere else? Lord Rooker: We will employ real people to do a real job in a professional way. Q232 Mr Cummings: Enterprise Zones, Minister, and European Structural Funds, SRB, English Partnerships, Coalfield Programme, all due to come to an end within five years, which, of course, gives rise to great concern. Are you worried that regeneration will not be self-sustaining once these initiatives are finished? Lord Rooker: 'Worry' is the wrong word. I would not want to put a negative word on it, but aware of the possible situation. As schemes come to an end, sometimes for perfectly good reasons, it is bound to cause a blight in the area, particularly with the people working on such schemes, they may be on contract for the schemes. As it comes to an end it may be they say, as their own future is concerned, and people are entitled to do that, they will leave before the end of the scheme, we might get a collapse at the fag end, so we are looking very carefully at that. That applies equally with the Neighbourhood Renewal Fund, which does not go beyond 2006, so we have got to do all that with the Spending Review next year. We have got the European funding money, as you are right to highlight, to which there will be massive changes, of course, as a result of the expansion of the European Union. That is something we have been working on and negotiating with our partners in Brussels, and hopefully there will not be the nemesis that people might have expected, that we can plan for change. We have still got to make sure, in these areas which require the extra assistance, for reasons which I think are wholly legitimate, the coalfields being one of them, that the resources are there and we do not just sort of wrap up the extra help that part of society rightly deserves. Q233 Mr Cummings: Do you have any plans, Minister, to provide alternative incentives to attract large businesses onto coalfield sites after 2005, or extending the life of Enterprise Zones? Lord Rooker: It is horrible really when you have to say this, because I always thought, if ever I became a minister, I would never fall into this nonsense, i.e. really that is a matter for the Chancellor of the Exchequer at the Budget and, in addition to that, our negotiations with the Treasury on the next Spending Review. I have to fall behind that because I have nothing else to say on that, except that we are acutely aware of the value of these programmes and acutely aware, by the way, of what I think has been certainly my experience, this is a highly targeted approach. Many of the schemes you refer to are overlapping, I accept, some of those, but they are highly targeted, in certain respects. I think there has been a benefit to that, to concentrate management, and, of course, the capacity, we are not exactly overwhelmed by the numbers of quality people to drive these schemes, we get snags with one or two and we have to deal with them, so we do have some capacity problems. This is an issue which, I can assure you, we will be talking to the Treasury about in the next Spending Review and something we are talking about constantly in Government, particularly in respect of the changes in the European funding programmes. Q234 Mr Cummings: Minister, in 1998 the Department agreed to set up a new Enterprise Fund to support local businesses. Can you tell us why it has not been set up and whether you intend to set it up in the near future? Lord Rooker: No, I cannot, and that may be why I have not got anything in my brief on it. Offhand, in 1998, unless anybody behind me has got a single sheet with a good paragraph on it, I cannot help, but if I can I will. Certainly I will give you a note on that, because, obviously, if there was a commitment made to set up a fund and it never was set up presumably there was a good reason. It is not one I am aware of since the time I have been at ODPM, but certainly I will have a look at that, if I do not get you an answer before I finish here today. Q235 Christine Russell: Can I carry on this theme, Minister. When we went up to Easington last week we visited what seemed to be a really successful training centre called the Acorn Centre. The person in charge was saying to us that she is really concerned that, come the EU changes which you mentioned earlier, massive changes, I think you said they were, the funding could be cut to this centre. What advice would you give her now, what would your officials be saying to people who are running the good centres which are funded currently by EU funds? Lord Rooker: The only thing I can do is say honestly we are using our best endeavours to ensure that funding streams are not cut off when the European Union has its changes. We are still discussing this within the European Union, there are still decisions to be made. On the one hand, there is an argument should the overall European Union budget increase to take account of our new partner countries, so that the money can stay the same, or not, or we recycle some of our own contributions. These are ongoing discussions, which, of course, the Foreign Office are leading for us, but they are in constant discussion with our older partners in particular. Q236 Christine Russell: Your advice is, just business as usual? Lord Rooker: Business as usual, because we are working to make sure that these schemes and these funding streams do not collapse in areas that we argue require regeneration and special, targeted measures. Quite clearly, it goes without saying, the coalfield communities area, just as the purpose of your exercise today covers that. We would say it goes a bit wider than that because there are other areas of the country requiring such help, we are working actively on that. It is in our interests though, as I repeat, to get decisions as early as possible. Therefore, it is the same for the French and the Germans. Not only from you but I know they have got such programmes and they will want their own people not to be blighted, to start to think "Well, we'll fold this earlier," or "I'm going to disappear. I've got myself another job, I'm going to go," therefore you get an artificial collapse of such schemes maybe just coming into flower, into fruition, in that sense. We are on the case and we will get a decision as quickly as we can, and we are on the case on your side, by the way, which is what we have to say to that person. Q237 Christine Russell: What about social regeneration schemes, in particular, because we do know for certain that SRB is finishing, and that was raised with us on a number of occasions, that there will not be any more access to SRB funds? What about those more social regeneration programmes? Lord Rooker: The RDAs have got the single pot. The RDAs are much wider organisations, in some ways, than they started off being, of course. Obviously, the answer to DTI, although my Department provides, I understand, well over 95 per cent of the funds, which is a bit of an irritant, in a way, nevertheless, we are working in co-operation with them. What we have said repeatedly, and I have listened to all the nine RDA Chairs recently, is to embrace a much wider remit in terms of what their activities are, way beyond what I might call the old crude but important economics, from the tourism, the rural, the social side, and, of course, they are key players in the respect we have regionalised housing, through the Housing Boards. There should not be a drying up of income streams for some of the social projects, they may be done in a slightly different way. The opportunity has to be taken, I think, to simplify some of this. It was put to me by one of the directors at ODPM, it was put to a group of us when he gave a presentation, just when the Departments joined, "To the recipient. The income streams that flow into these areas can look like a bowl of spaghetti." They are incredibly complicated, and because they are complicated you miss out sometimes on income streams that are of value. We are simplifying, we are trying desperately to simplify some of these income streams, but there is no policy objective till we loose the pot of money so that people can fund what you can call the wider social projects. Q238 Christine Russell: When you were sitting incognito in the back row, I think you had arrived when Janet Bibby was giving evidence, and she was expressing, I think, her real concerns about the Coalfields Regeneration Trust, which is time-limited, it has its three years. Can you give her any comfort, although I think she has left now, are you minded to renew that? Lord Rooker: I heard everything. I came in with the public as a simple foot soldier from the other place. You have to remember, by the way, the Coalfields Regeneration Trust certainly has had the funding vastly increased over what was started originally, it has been doubled from when it started originally, so we are not being parsimonious with that. This is something we will have to negotiate, I would imagine, with the Spending Review. We get a three-year Spending Review, which is a lot better than a one-year Spending Review, by the way, I am not being negative about this, it is big progress to get three years rather than one year, but it does mean we are coming to the period now where we have to start to negotiate the next Spending Review, once we get to 2004. The Coalfields Regeneration Trust and indeed the programme from English Partnerships, I think, have been remarkably successful. I am not being overbullish about this. As I said, by and large, all the evidence that I have read, and I think what you have heard today, indicates, over a broad front, the policy of attempting to regenerate the coalfields, not leaving the lonely ones alone, because of the isolated ones, there are no 'no go' areas in that sense. Also we are looking for other sites, obviously we have added to the sites, and, as you have heard, we will be able to deal with the extra sites from the existing programme, because we can recycle the money, it is ring-fenced but it gets recycled, so we can actually use that resource to great effect, I think. Can I give you the answer to the question I could not answer. The Enterprise Fund. We may need Treasury approval, if not, it will be approved by the end of the year, so that is good news I think. I think that is a good answer, is it not? The end of the year being, I hope, the end of this financial year, I presume. Q239 Andrew Bennett: How much money? Lord Rooker: I will send you a note, Andrew. It will be a lot, I am sure, £20 million. Q240 Mr Betts: You have just mentioned the whole problem of a range of different initiatives. In the paper which we had from South Yorkshire it said there was something like 50 different area initiatives tackling regeneration in the coalfields. Does not that mean, in the end, that we do not get a combined result, which is the effect of all the 50 initiatives together but many of them actually conflict and people do not get joined up together, organisations, Local Strategic Partnerships, spend all their time trying to do some co-ordination, which is almost impossible? Is there any way we can simplify this greatly and create almost one body and say, "There's the money, get on with it"? Lord Rooker: I shall certainly go back and ask some questions about that. If there is an area subject to so many income streams and initiatives, I have not heard a figure as high as that, I would want to know why we had not already done some simplification. That is absolutely barmy, that an area is subject to so many initiatives. Q241 Mr Betts: That is what they have had over the time they have been working with them? Lord Rooker: Some have come and gone, so that is okay, so they are not 50 initiatives at the same time. This has been the issue, I think, of trying to target the money. There is not a bottomless pit. By spreading it thinly we do not get the benefit, by targeting it we think we do. We are trying, I might add, within Whitehall, to stop having lots of new schemes with small grants, and things like that. I have had discussions with one of my colleagues in another department today in this respect. We want to try to mainstream as much as we can, and, of course, mainstream through the normal instruments, whether it is the local government or indeed the Regional Development Agencies, and, in due course, probably the Regional Divisional Assemblies. There will be a role there, in terms of redundancy of housing, to try to have a single pot in the regions. It is one of the purposes of that, to get that single pot with the housing investment programme for local authorities in the annual development programme for the Housing Corporation, to simplify, get the benefits of simplification and make sure we deal also with the small areas, like in the rural townships, as well as the larger urban areas. You have got to be careful, giving it to a single body which may have a blind eye to some of the smaller projects, because a quick fix on a big site looks easier, we have got to make sure we do not fall into that trap, but, by and large, I would want to simplify from where we are at the moment. Q242 Mr Betts: You talk about mainstreaming, and generally, of course, that is a good idea. If you are going to mainstream them into local authorities, can you make sure that they then mainstream it in the sorts of objectives that you want to see in the coalfields? Lord Rooker: Yes, this is the great snag, is it not? We are committed, in respect of our colleagues and partners in local government, to having fewer ring-fenced funds. On the one hand, we cannot say "Okay, we're not going to ring-fence the money" and then say, the next day, "Right, we want to know exactly which street you're working in, that you are meeting Government objectives." We cannot, Government, have it both ways, neither can the House, with respect, because, as you vote for money, for projects, you will want to see the end game for that money, you will want to see value for money, the Public Accounts Committee will want to see value for money on schemes. If you take the Neighbourhood Renewal Fund, for example, I was very surprised when I went to ODPM to realise that, it is paid over to local authorities, it does not have to be spent on neighbourhood renewal per se, it is their view how it is spent. They have got the floor targets and the indicators, true, we want to be able to check on that, and we are in touch with them constantly, but it is not ring-fenced as such. That gives them greater flexibility. Out of flexibility we get better value for money. They are on the ground, it is best that we in Whitehall are not telling them the minutiae of how we operate these schemes. Recently we made some announcements to unring-fence some other money that was going to local authorities, some of it in terms of homelessness. There is an issue there, of unring-fencing to local government. Then I trust, rather than a wing and a prayer, they will deliver what you want, in terms of central government, because we have got to go back to the Treasury at the end of the day and account for that money, did we get the outcome we expected. I think we have to be adults. We have a better relationship with local government than I think we have ever had in my experience in your House over the last 30 years, and there is a willingness everywhere I have gone to work in partnership, and they are convincing me so far that we can get value from money. We get the audited arrangements and we get the Local Strategic Partnerships operating, and so I am reasonably optimistic that we can end up getting better value for money by mainstreaming those. I am speaking at a conference on the very issue tomorrow. Q243 Mr Betts: I think local government may accept that there is a better working relationship between Government and themselves, but then also they say, from time to time, that it would be nice if government departments always worked together as well as they should. Do you think there is a case for a permanent cross-departmental working group to be established to deal with the issues of the coalfields, and indeed perhaps a lead minister appointed, to post together the various things which different departments are doing? Lord Rooker: If there are policy issues, of major changes of policy, the current committee structure seems to perform okay, in terms of getting agreement across Government. What it comes down to then is making sure that, as ODPM, we are in the driving-seat in the sense of trying to encourage and making sure that, our responsibilities, there is co-ordination across the piece. It is exactly the same with the Communities Plan launched by the Deputy Prime Minister in February, it is a Government plan. The Coalfields Programme is a Government programme, therefore it is our task to ensure that other departments take account of this in making their own spending decisions. When we start to regenerate the coalfields areas, with new jobs, houses are built, we know for a given number of dwellings you need a primary school, for another given number of dwellings you need a secondary school, that has to be co-ordinated with the Department for Education. We know for a given number of dwellings you will need a health centre, you will need a GP. That has to be co-ordinated from the centre. Then the people down on the ground, where it is the primary care trust, and at the regions and health and the various departments, as long as they know the people in Whitehall are working to a plan, i.e., in this case, coalfields communities regeneration, or the Sustainable Communities Plan, and there is a bit of overlap anyway, we can get their mainstream programmes bent into this plan for regeneration. It might look alright for a headline but it would not make any difference in the way the policy is delivered. If it is failing and there is a lack of communication, lack of co-ordination across Whitehall on this, then at the end of the day that is my fault and I will do something about it, if someone can point up where there is a real hole in the co-ordination. I cannot be fairer than that. I cannot offer a quick fix on this. Most of my time is spent particularly on the communities plan side of it, and less so on this, because I think the issues are working quite well. We are going to have more need for that, as more houses are built in the coalfields, it is true, and more jobs are generated, there will be this need for making sure there are roads, the Department of Transport, maybe the odd railway station, they did talk about Corby this afternoon, although not quite in this context. Then we will discuss it with our other partner authorities, where we try to pull them together, down at their level, at the regional level or the district level, all these other organisations, whether it is the Environment Agency or other such bodies, so that they know at that level there is a Government plan, i.e. to which all ministers are signed up, which the permanent secretaries are signed up to. I think it would be giving a false perspective if you said, "Give us a coalfields regeneration minister." If there were one I suppose it would be me. If there is a failure of co-ordination I would like to know about it because it is my responsibility. Q244 Andrew Bennett: Can I take you on to the housing question. Over two years ago, a lot of people, including this Committee, drew attention to the empty homes across a lot of the North of England. In the last two years, English Partnerships have been looking really fairly closely at the coalfield areas and they have now identified a significant number of empty homes within the coalfield areas. Some of the things the Committee has looked at are just as bad in the coalfields as we looked at in the North of England two years ago, so what are you doing about it? Lord Rooker: First of all, I agree with your analysis. There is an overlap in a couple of areas between the market with more Pathfinders, i.e. the nine areas - - - Q245 Andrew Bennett: Barnsley and Stoke, I think? Lord Rooker: Yes, that is right. South Yorkshire and Stoke, the North Staffordshire Pathfinder. I have been to virtually all the Pathfinders but I have not been to all the parts of all the Pathfinders. I was in Stoke and Newcastle-under-Lyme the other week for the second time this year, and you can see, you know yourself, when you are taken around there, you can recognise the Coal Board houses. First of all, most of them are empty, derelict, sometimes burned out, and you wonder why they have not been cleared anyway, because they are an eyesore. I regret to say, the planning for some of these issues, the master planning and then the planning for the programmes for replacement takes over, and, of course, the ownership is not always straightforward. You have to remember the spivs moved in on this lot and they were bought and sold at auctions in London and at corner pubs elsewhere, and this caused mayhem, and, of course, this has been highlighted in the last few years. I think what was said earlier on, and the Deputy Prime Minister launched the plan in the East Midlands, at Meden Valley, to look at a project we have got there, from which we hope we will be able to learn some experience to use elsewhere. In the Pathfinders, work has gone ahead, several million pounds have been allocated already to each of the Pathfinders anyway. We will have their strategic plans for those we have not had at the moment, which are the two you mentioned anyway, by next spring, to release the rest of the money. There is half a billion pounds over the three years in the housing Pathfinders to get cracking on this, and, like anybody else, I have been chivvying. I want the scaffolding, I want the bull-dozers, I want the hoardings up, I want the action and I want the jobs, because it has got to be jobs-led as well as housing. It is not just a housing project, the housing is the thing which people see and recognise more easily. We have to clear some of the stock probably quicker than we have done so far, but clearing it and leaving it empty for a couple of years probably sends a signal to the local community they do not know what they are doing. You do send mixed messages, if you are not careful. Q246 Andrew Bennett: What about actually having at least one or two more Pathfinders, if you are saying they are going well, in some of these coalfield areas? Lord Rooker: The nine were designated by Stephen Byers, just before ODPM was launched. I do not think we have got plans for any more. Our objective, with the nine Pathfinders, by the way, is to learn the lessons to stop other areas needing Pathfinder status. Q247 Andrew Bennett: We have identified already that there are some bits of the coalfields which have exactly the same problems, so if you are not going to set up a new Pathfinder, what about English Partnerships, they have got some money, why not let them diversify rather more into housing, in some of these areas? Lord Rooker: As you heard earlier on, - - - Q248 Andrew Bennett: They were singing your praises. Lord Rooker: They were, were they not, without any prompting on my part, I have to say. I felt quite embarrassed. The fact is, they are a class organisation. They are our lever for change, the ODPM. As a government department, as I have said to your Committee before, we ourselves do not build or clear houses, we are ODPM. Our instruments for change are two, the Housing Corporation and English Partnerships. They have got their remit, they are all professionals, we do not have any day-to-day interference, and we have given them far more flexibility than they have ever had before, they know what the big picture is, particularly in the Sustainable Communities Plan. Q249 Andrew Bennett: Do you think they can get on with it, in the same way as the Pathfinders are doing it? Lord Rooker: If that was their view, that for some of their areas, with their resources, they thought they could make an impact which fitted in with the overall big picture, I for one would not be stopping them, far from it. Q250 Andrew Bennett: You have talked about the Meden Valley and the special purpose vehicle to do work there, but you mentioned also this question about private landlords. Are you going to give us a guarantee that local authorities will be able to license landlords in all these areas of market weakness? Lord Rooker: The licensing of private sector landlords will be at the discretion of a local authority, subject to the approval of the Secretary of State. I cannot conceive of any local authority coming to the Deputy Prime Minister, or Keith Hill, in that case, and saying, "Look, we've got a problem in this area, because it's coalfields, where the spiv landlords are in." The very purpose for licensing private landlords was born out of the housing renewal areas, although the legislation - which I do not think has been published yet but it will be published shortly, because I think you have got the Second Reading before Christmas probably - in the Housing Bill is that it is nationwide. A local authority, anywhere, can make a case for a street, or part of a street, to be licensed, if it is based on either anti-social behaviour or other factors, it can make the case. I have no doubt in my mind that local authorities will be giving extra powers. Also, of course, with what is happening in your House today and tomorrow, which is the reason Yvette could not be present, because she does this on a daily basis, the coalfields issue, is that the extra powers to facilitate the ease of compulsory purchase will be placed into the Housing and Planning Bill. We have taken the opportunity, obviously, with the carry-over, to make the Bill stronger, in this respect, to give more powers to local authorities. The answer to your question is, yes. Q251 Chairman: Will the local authorities be likely to have the power to license a particular landlord, as opposed to a particular area? Lord Rooker: Yes, I think it is. The idea, of course, let us face it, to license the landlord is to drive the crooks out of business, let us not put too fine a point on this. It may be that the landlord cannot be licensed, the manager gets the licence because he is not a crook, where a spiv is a rip-off merchant causing mayhem in the community and therefore can manage it differently. I think there is a fair degree of discretion for the local authority to license in an area maybe all the landlords in a street. Of course, the good landlords, who have good relations with the local authority now, are not going to object to this, because it is the others giving them and their industry a bad name. Q252 Chairman: I think my point was that you may have a particular landlord who has a number of properties, in different areas, each one of which is giving problems, so it is the individual rather than the area? Lord Rooker: Let me put it this way, the House has not had the legislation yet, so we have got plenty of chances for amending it. I would like to think that the legislation will be flexible enough that, if there were the case of a national landlord, operating in different parts of the country, who had a reputation for running the properties badly, where there was a reasonable amount of anti-social behaviour, housing benefit fraud and other such matters that caused the licensing in the first place, we could target that landlord. It may be that we have to target the areas where they operate, but I do not think the good landlords will object to that. Q253 Mr Cummings: Minister, are you making any representations to the Department of Trade and Industry to have the question of mineworkers' compensation for coronary, bronchitis, emphysema, resolved as speedily as possible? Lord Rooker: I am not aware of what the delays are at the present time. If there are current issues regarding mineworkers' compensation, I know it was a large programme and it was delayed when it started. I am not up to date with the actual payment levels at the present time. I am well aware because I was in the House at the time, when many of the debates and the pressures on the Government were taking place. I have not received anything, as far as I can recall from my brief. I have got stuff on the pensions but, in terms of the compensation for illness, I have not seen anything that is negative about that. If there are issues, I would be happy to take it up. We will ask about it, obviously, as you have raised the question. Q254 Mr Cummings: I would not want to press you this afternoon, Minister. Lord Rooker: Do not worry. You have asked the question. We will check with the DTI about how it is going, so you can have a note on it. Q255 Andrew Bennett: It is an absolute disgrace. I do not have much of the coalfield population, if you like, but I have got cases where people have died and the money is going to go to their grandchildren. If the money goes out now, it goes to an elderly miner who is in poor health and they spend it in the coalfield area, because their health does not let them go to Spain, or anywhere else, to spend it so they spend it locally. You get two hits. You give some compensation to the person who suffered and you get it into those coalfield areas. When it is paid out years after the person has died, it goes to grandchildren in the south of England and they will spend it anywhere other than the coalfields. We have got some figures here, which we can give you, that it is going really pitifully slowly. The only people who are benefiting from it at the moment are the lawyers dealing with it? Lord Rooker: I regret that. I accept completely what you say. I will make it my business, here on my own, as it were, to check with DTI why it is going, in your words, pitifully slowly. I take your point exactly that money paid out later, after the miner sadly is deceased, is less likely to be spent in that area than it would have been. Let us face it, that was not the purpose of the pay-out in the first place, by the way. Q256 Andrew Bennett: They are getting a double hit? Lord Rooker: I know. It is an unintended consequence that the payout to the miner is spent in the area, or we hope it will be spent in the area, because it is not going to solve the miner's ill-health problem, it is not for that purpose, it is not going to do that. At least, in terms of liveability, the fact is the state has compensated for the way they were treated badly in the past. It makes you wonder why people wanted to fight to keep their jobs to go down the pits, because it was such an ill-health industry. That is not because it is a bad industry, you can mine coal quite safely. The fact is, we all know that in the early part of the century the structure was set up so it was an ill-health industry, because health and safety took a very low priority, and not a lot of that changed in 1948 either, as we know. We were late coming to this and it is up to our generation to pay the consequences of that by compensating those miners. Chairman: Minister, I think your timing is impeccable because I think we are getting a buzz for a vote. We know that you have been here all afternoon and we do appreciate your coming here to give evidence. As a colleague once famously put it, we congratulate you on your indefatigability. Thank you very much. |