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Planning (Hillingdon)
10.59 am
John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab): By way of introduction, I should say that Adjournment debates are meant to enable individual MPs and others to outline an issue and permit time for ministerial response. I accept that today's debate may be somewhat different. The complexity of the issues involved requires me to spend some time outlining and explaining them. This is an ongoing matter—a work in progress—so the Minister will be able to say only a limited amount this morning. Instead, I suggest that she takes note of the issues, and responds more fully in separate meetings, in writing and possibly in a further debate later in the year.
Despite such facts, I believe that it was my duty to obtain this debate to place on record the matters that have so concerned me, my constituents and local councillors, so that everybody can have access to the fullest information on this important issue. I also wish to ensure that the House has a progress report on a matter that raises questions of public administration, practices and probity that go well beyond local interest and to the heart of administrative accountability in local and national Government.
I wish to explain briefly the background to the debate and the Audit Commission's inquiry into planning services in Hillingdon, to examine the conduct of that inquiry and discuss its findings, and to outline some concerns about the reaction to it from the ruling Conservative administration in the London borough of Hillingdon and from chief officers at the borough. I want also to explain the way forward that I propose should be taken to address the continuing concerns of local residents, councillors and me.
To explain the background to today's debate, in 2002, the Government introduced a planning delivery grant system to improve the performance of local planning departments. An additional grant was awarded to planning authorities as an incentive if they met Government targets for turnaround time from the receipt of a planning application to the date of the dispatch of the decision to the planning applicant. The proposal was generally supported across the House, and both the Government and Opposition parties felt that that was a way to improve overall performance centrally and ensure an accurate record of how that performance changed over time.
The London borough of Hillingdon, in which my constituency is located, received a planning delivery grant in 2002 in reward for its significant improvement in planning performance. Given the widespread local criticism of the performance of Hillingdon's planning departments over the years, that came as a surprise—to say the least—to some local councillors, and residents, and also to me, based on anecdotal evidence from my constituency surgery and consultations with local community organisations and constituents. The Audit Commission designated Hillingdon's planning department as scoring the lowest possible measure for performance and, overall, the authority has been consistently scored as weak.
The contradictory information provoked one local councillor, Councillor Janet Duncan, who is in the Public Gallery today and is a retired assistant director of
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planning, to delve more deeply into detail of the planning department's records in order to understand why there should be such a discrepancy between local perceptions of the planning department's performance and the high standards claimed by Hillingdon council's planning department as part of its submission for a planning delivery grant.
Councillor Duncan's attempt to inquire into the matter, remarkably, met intense hostility and even abuse at meetings from leading councillors in the Conservative administration. The council is hung, with a Conservative administration supported by the Liberal Democrats. There was and continues to be a disgraceful campaign of personal vilification against Councillor Duncan, led by leading members of the council: the leader of the council and the lead cabinet member for planning. It was even apparent in our local newspaper over the past few weeks.
In addition to the campaign at council level, Councillor Duncan was denied access to information by officers, refused attendance at key meetings with officials to discuss her concerns and faced with a concerted campaign of obfuscation and delay on access to information. To her credit, she persisted and, with great skill, she discovered the following points.
First, the council had claimed performance target achievements, and therefore Government grant awards, based on the use of a target date contrary to the guidelines and regulations set out by the Government. The claim was based on the date that the decision was made, rather than when it was dispatched to the applicant. Secondly, an internal memorandum showed that the use of the incorrect target date, contrary to the Government's requirements, was known to the management team of the council's planning department. That memorandum was also copied to the head of planning services. Thirdly, planning reports had been physically altered, often very crudely, to change the dates, enabling targets to be met and grants to be gained. Fourthly, the staff were aware of the problems and were so concerned that they had raised them at their union meeting.
Our impression of the planning department during that period is of a department permeated by a climate of fear, intimidation and bullying, particularly of junior staff. In my view, that prevented whistleblowers from coming forward. Indeed, no whistleblowing procedures were put in place in the local authority.
I want to explain the level of involvement of Members and Ministers. Once Councillor Duncan's inquiries revealed evidence of potential malpractice, she approached me and, in autumn 2003, I lodged the information with the relevant Minister in the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, the Minister for Housing and Planning. The Minister rightly took the matter seriously—I commend him for that—and tried professionally and expeditiously to address it in the way that he thought most appropriate. He therefore passed the information to the Audit Commission, which was asked to undertake an urgent investigation.
The Minister had already appointed consultants on two occasions to try to examine the performance of the London borough of Hillingdon and to improve its planning department's procedures and performance overall. By June 2004, I was increasingly concerned at
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the lack of progress in the pursuit of the Audit Commission's investigation undertaken by the local district auditor. Neither I nor Councillor Duncan had heard anything or received any report on the activities of the district auditor.
Consequently, I secured an Adjournment debate on 9 June 2004, in which I outlined the concerns and questioned the Minister on the progress of the district auditor's inquiry. I raised further concerns that evidence, particularly computer-based evidence, was at risk and being destroyed. I expressed my worries about the appropriateness of the district auditor's inquiries and, I have to say without any form of arrogance, it seems almost prophetic that I questioned whether the district auditor would have the skills and abilities to investigate such matters and bring such an investigation to a conclusion. I suggested that a more independent investigation might be required, certainly into the administration of the department, and that the police should be involved.
On 8 July 2004, when I was led to understand that the district auditor had drawn his investigation to a conclusion and was drafting his final report, I raised in business questions my anxiety that the district auditor had not approached me or Councillor Duncan for interview, nor even the full range of council officers involved in the process. Indeed, my understanding was that no local residents who had raised their concerns had been interviewed. As a result, the district auditor did not complete his report, but eventually wrote to Councillor Duncan and me and agreed a meeting at which we were at long last able to directly explain our concerns and hand over further evidence.
I now turn to the district auditor's report, which was eventually submitted to the borough on 31 January 2005, more than 12 months and leading on for 14 since I raised the matter with the Minister, who had properly and in a timely manner submitted the evidence to the district auditor. Although the chief executive of the London borough of Hillingdon had given an assurance to the district auditor that the report would be published on an open cabinet agenda, the report was withheld from the first cabinet meeting after publication and withheld from the Labour group councillors and the public for more than 10 days. In the meantime, the local press were briefed. They were told that the district auditor had given the council a clean bill of health, the investigation had found only minor administrative failures and that no one apart from a few junior officers was to blame. That was pure spin, distortion and, in many instances, a downright lie.
What is the reality of the report? Far from giving the council a clean bill of health, the district auditors confirmed the facts. They confirmed the facts exposed by Councillor Janet Duncan's own investigations.
First, did the council misreport its development control performance by reference to the wrong date, contrary to Government procedures? Yes. I shall quote directly from the district auditor:
"The council has misreported its development control performance over a number of years by reference to the date of decision, rather than the date of despatch of decision."
We discover from the brief sampling—not the full investigation—that more than one in 10 planning applications were using the wrong system, contrary to Government guidelines that were known and issued at the time.
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Secondly, did that misreporting have an effect on the council's overall performance records? Yes it did. It had a significant impact on the actual performance achieved by the council. Again, I shall quote the district auditor:
"Indeed, it is a far more significant matter, in terms of its impact on reported performance, than any of the matters originally referred to us."
The facts of the matter are extraordinary.
Thirdly, did the council receive grant from the Government based on misreported performance? Yes. Let me refer to the auditor again:
"The Council received £320,000 planning delivery grant for 2003/2004 from the ODPM, in part reflecting improvements to its development control performance that had been calculated to the date of decision, rather than the date of despatch of decision."
Thanks to the beneficence of this Government, and I am grateful to the Ministers involved, they have not demanded that that grant be paid back. Otherwise, my constituents would have had to pay for that through their local council taxes—paying for the abuse of the system by the council itself and council officers.
Fourthly, were reports tampered with and dates on reports changed? Yes. In more than one in six planning application reports, the district auditor discovered and confirmed that reports had been "manually adjusted". That is the district auditor's euphemism for tampering, crossing out, backdating crudely and overriding dates—in many ways what in common parlance would be described as forgery.
The district auditor determined from a limited sample that in more than one in 25 of those cases the detailed application processing papers were regarded as definitely suspicious. That is a district auditor who I believe has erred on the side of caution and in favour of the local authority, but even in those figures he identified real suspicions.
Fifthly, were senior officers in the planning department aware that the date of decision and not dispatch was being used contrary to Government guidelines? Yes. The e-mail from the planning department's management team was produced confirming that. From the district auditor's report one would expect that, having found all the major factual allegations correct and proven, he would conclude that it was a serious matter warranting action, and that it would behove him to ensure further independent investigation was enabled and promptly undertaken. From my experience in local government, I would expect the district auditor to see the matter through from investigation to report to full independent investigation and implementation of a view of improvements in procedures. Otherwise, how can my constituents gain or regain any confidence in the administration of the planning process in my area?
Bizarrely, the district auditor, having found out the facts of the matter, stops. It is as though he withdraws from the role as the engine of further investigation and reform. He also draws some extraordinary conclusions that no reasonable person could possibly arrive at.
First, I shall review his investigation process. From the outset, I was concerned about the lack of skills and competence of the district auditor to pursue the matter.
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That was exacerbated when we found out that the inquiry was to be ended early without myself or Councillor Duncan being interviewed. However, I now discover that the auditor definitely did not interview all relevant staff, particularly those staff with their names attached to planning reports, and particularly junior staff. In addition he did not even bother to interview the local resident upon whom we submitted an affidavit confirming that he had discovered that the date of his planning application had been tampered with and had reported it to the head of planning services at Hillingdon.
The district auditor, we now discover, had not implemented any whistleblowing procedures to enable vulnerable staff or planning applicants to produce evidence in confidence and security. Even when it was pointed out that staff had raised their concerns at their union meeting, the district auditor did not even contact the trade union or its representatives to clarify the matter.
Secondly, the district auditor relied heavily on evidence being collected and analysed by the London borough of Hillingdon planning department itself—the very organisation being investigated was providing him with the materials upon which he was to base his conclusions. For example, whereas the council was reporting the percentage of reports using the wrong date as 0.6 per cent., when he checked the department's information and verified it with a small sample, he discovered that it rose to 11.2 per cent. The numbered tampered with rose from the council's claim of 9.9 per cent. to 17.4 per cent. when the district auditor undertook further investigation. The auditor then naively suggested that that was not deliberate but may have been just the result of pressure of work.
I have previously given to the Minister examples where dates have been scrubbed out, rubbed out and new dates crudely inserted above them and signed off by a number of officers. That is not overwork; that is tampering with information upon which legal matters are determined. Even the auditor is critical of how, instead of instigating an independent review, the council had the audacity to appoint the head of planning services to investigate her own planning department. In addition, he criticised the limited scope of those internal investigations.
Thirdly, the final conclusion of the district auditor exposes the inadequacies of that route—that whole mechanism for addressing what I believe to be a deliberate and organised attempt to manipulate the planning system in Hillingdon for the benefit of the ruling council administration and senior officers. Having discovered that the wrong procedures were used, that the council officers had been fully advised of the right dates and procedures, that there had been tampering with and adjustment of official documents and that that was suspicious, he concluded that nobody was to blame. Despite all the evidence of tampering and forgery, no one is to blame, because he cannot find what he describes as conclusive evidence to nail any individual officer or group of individuals. Even the council had to admit in its own investigation that it had been led to believe that the objective of tampering had been to try to gain additional Government grant.
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The district auditor seeks to downgrade the matter, saying that no extra grant was achieved. That is not right: extra grant was achieved in the first year and we did not lose it because the Government were good enough not to demand it back. The auditor argues that nobody gained individually. Quite the contrary: senior officers have been complimented on their performance by leading local councillors. No doubt, their careers will be enhanced and they will receive the associated pay rewards that follow.
What next? Is the district auditor to see the matter through to any conclusion? No. He recommends that the council organise an independent investigation into the forged dates and tampering. The leader of the local council responded in our local paper, saying that he and the borough solicitor will undertake that investigation. Where is the independence in that?
The scrutiny committee on the planning environment seeks to set up a sub-committee perhaps to examine the report. It is understood that the leading Conservative administration will seek to block that at the whips committee next week. The district auditor reports that, as a minimum, there should be an investigation into the officers who are responsible for significant manual adjustments—forgeries. To date, not a single member of staff has been disciplined, and I predict that none will be. If anybody is, he will just receive a slap on the wrist and the issue will be allowed to die quietly. That is the Hillingdon way under its present administration.
In conclusion, many in my community feel betrayed by their local council. Now, they feel let down by the district auditor too, believing that the body that is responsible for ensuring probity and efficiency in the delivery of local services has not undertaken its work thoroughly. I will not fail them. Too much evidence of fraudulent behaviour has come to light during the investigation—and that is in addition to the dire failure of planning services in my community. Planning enforcement is almost non-existent; there is no pro-active planning; the staffing levels in the department are poor; and we have planners who go to site meetings without even knowing where the sites are. The disregard of the wishes of local people goes on apace. The selling-off of community assets; the disregard of covenants on individual pieces of land; the distribution of grants and the award of contracts—all have a whiff about them if they are associated with the London borough of Hillingdon.
Today, I am calling for a fully independent public inquiry into the London borough of Hillingdon as a planning authority. I am launching a petition, which I shall urge local residents, businesses and community organisations to sign, calling upon the council to do its duty and to convene an independent inquiry. That will bring the matter back to the attention of the council, the community and, if necessary, Parliament.
If the administration of the London borough of Hillingdon has nothing to hide, why should it refuse to support such a call? If the councillors are so confident of the probity of their administration, I ask them to open up the books. In the London borough of Hillingdon, there is an endemic culture of connivance and a belligerent refusal to be accountable. That has resulted in a grotesque failure to deliver the services that my community needs and deserves. The administration is
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tainted and contaminated at the highest levels, and it is my role to expose that, in order to ensure that my constituents are better served by their council.
11.22 am
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (Yvette Cooper) : I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) on securing the debate and on using it to raise an issue that he has been pursuing for some time. He set out clearly some of the problems facing Hillingdon and raised many of the problems that were pointed out in the Audit Commission report on Hillingdon. He has been instrumental in pushing forward the district auditor's inquiries in meetings with my right hon. Friend the Minister for Housing and Planning in late January 2003 and early 2004, and promoted the subject in a debate in Westminster Hall last year.
As my hon. Friend knows, the Audit Commission conducted a thorough investigation and concluded that for some years Hillingdon had incorrectly based the reporting of its development control performance on the date of making, rather than the date of issue, of decisions on planning applications. It concluded that that did not appear to have been done deliberately with the motive of enhancing reported performance, although it did have that effect. The Audit Commission's analysis showed that the difference in reported performance in a particular category could affect as many as 50 per cent. of the decisions in that category. It also found some manual amendment of decision dates, which improved performance figures by 2 to 4 per cent. I understand that the council is investigating that further.
John McDonnell : I find it extraordinary that the district auditor's report concluded, without further investigation and on the basis of information provided by the local authority with limited sampling and so on, that nothing was done deliberately. Even within the council, there was one officer who might have ensured some independence within the authority. Its statement says that
"there are grounds for suspecting that there were adjustments to the dates certain applications were signed off and this had the intention of having the determination of these cases meeting Government set targets",
and yet there is to be no further investigation of that matter, other than an internal one.
Yvette Cooper : My hon. Friend makes important points, particularly on the manual amendments. I will come back to that.
As part of its investigation, the Audit Commission sought to verify that the council had put in place procedures to secure proper recording of performance. It identified some errors and indicated that the council has taken steps to prevent their recurrence. The report also enumerates a wide range of checks—
John McDonnell : Let me make this explicit and put it on the record: the council's actions were taken only after Councillor Janet Duncan had raised the matters, not just with the council, but with the Government
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office for London. When the discussions between the Government office for London and the council took place, she was excluded from the meetings. So only when one councillor undertook a whistleblowing exercise were the matters addressed.
Yvette Cooper : My hon. Friend will understand that I am not able to comment on the detail of individual councillor's roles or on their participation in particular meetings. The council has certainly instigated changes in response to the Audit Commission report and the problems that it identified.
Our consultants have also indicated that there might still be concerns as to whether the improved performance can be maintained, because they think that the council has not addressed all the issues that might put performance at risk. Senior officials from the ODPM met the council's chief executive in February to put the issue to him, and dialogue is continuing with the borough about what still needs to be done.
John McDonnell : In the past, reports published by the ODPM on the planning performance of the London borough of Hillingdon have been denied to councillors for a considerable number of weeks, if not months. Therefore, there is no transparency in Hillingdon. I urge the ODPM to take a more active role in ensuring that discussions between the Department and the council are made open and transparent, and that all reports are provided to all councillors. That has not been the case until now. In fact, obtaining information from the London borough of Hillingdon at member level is like drawing teeth.
Yvette Cooper : I am keen to ensure that there is appropriate transparency of discussions, so I shall happily discuss the matter further with my hon. Friend to ensure that the right level of transparency is implemented in practice.
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It is important that when allegations are made that touch on the propriety of the council's conduct, appropriate investigations are undertaken so that the situation can, as far as possible, be put right. As I said, the council continues to investigate certain aspects of the misreporting. The auditor will also need to see that the authority is taking effective follow-up action, and if the auditor has reason to be concerned that the action is not effective, it is open to the auditor to carry out further inquiries.
My hon. Friend has asked for further investigation into these matters. I am happy to consider his points and to talk to him about them, because he raises important details and issues for consideration.
John McDonnell : The key issue is that the district auditor has specifically recommended that there should be an independent investigation, but that is not being pursued by the local authority. We will not restore confidence in planning in the London borough of Hillingdon until we have an open, transparent and independent public investigation.
Yvette Cooper : I recognise the import of the points raised. Obviously, internal investigations are continuing with the council and the auditor will want to see that the authority is taking effective follow-up action, but I will have further discussions with my hon. Friend.
To reduce the risk of similar problems occurring in future, the ODPM has collaborated with the Audit Commission in preparing new and clearer guidance to auditors about the checks that they should make and the things that they should look out for in auditing the arrangements for recording planning performance. In due course, we will consult on a draft prescribed application form for all local planning authorities. That will make it clear how the beginning and end of the time taken to handle a planning application must be recorded.
11.30 am
Sitting suspended until Two o'clock.
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