Examination of Witnesses (Questions 860
- 866)
WEDNESDAY 10 NOVEMBER 2004
MR ELLIOT
MORLEY AND
LORD ROOKER
Q860 Joan Walley: I do not have that
assumption. I think Sir John Egan did when came here.
Lord Rooker: My answer to your
question is not as stupid as it sounds. You have only got to look
at what has happened in some of the great northern cities which
are undergoing a renaissance now, the Newcastles and the Leeds
and the Manchesters, to see that there are people there with skills,
imagination, innovation and drive, to actually manage these big
renaissance projects that are transforming these cities and, what
is more, the region that surrounds the city, because that is the
way they are looking at it these days. I am not saying there is
not a shortage of people, but what I am talking about is the concentration
to start with, because the figures are bigger. I understand the
concentration. When you start talking about half a million in
what is a relatively small area of the country, this is big news.
I understand that, and therefore there is a concentration on that,
that hides the fact that in the rest of the country there is an
enormous amount of work going on. The way that the three regions
have taken up the challenge that John Prescott gave them for the
Northern Way, to find a way of being able to use—because
there is huge infrastructure up in that part of the world that
actually could be exploited in the sense that it is not at the
present time, and the way they have picked that up. We need to
learn the techniques, because some things are going to be done
in the Growth Areas, because the nature of the beast is different,
which we can apply elsewhere. The same in the Pathfinders. They
were called Pathfinders for that reason, those nine areas of the
country designated. We want to apply the techniques of the Pathfinders
maybe to some parts of the South West, where there are not any
Pathfinders. But the management techniques and the planning techniques
of that we can apply elsewhere. That is part of the Communities
Plan, to share what is happening through the construction of delivery
vehicles and not leave everything just to the market or to the
whim of local authorities. If you do not drive it and manage it,
you will end up with unsustainable sprawl. That is the lesson
of the past.
Q861 Joan Walley: Can I say that
I hope very much that we will have an opportunity to lead the
way, certainly in the Pathfinder in West Staffordshire, because
that is important. Just turning to the issue of construction skills,
when the Committee went to Aberdeen, what we found there was that
there were a lot of new houses and new homes that had been built,
but because of poor construction skills on the actual workplace,
many of the houses had not really been built up to the standards
that were required because of poor workmanship. How can you be
convinced that in the local areas local employers will be able
to get the procurements and the contracts and that they will have
the capacity to take on the apprentices and provide the training
that is needed linked to the education agenda? Without that, we
will not get the 76,000 new entrants that are needed because of
the number of people retiring at the older end of the scale.
Lord Rooker: Why did you go to
Aberdeen? It is not my job to ask you questions really, but I
know nothing about Aberdeen.
Q862 Joan Walley: We actually went
to Aberdeen because we wanted to have a look at the way in which
the oil foundation of the city was re-adapting itself to the new
economic and environmental issues, and in the course of that we
saw best practice in terms of energy efficiency.
Lord Rooker: All I can say is
I have nothing to draw on in the sense of answering the question,
with respect. I am not in any way attacking Aberdeen, but the
fact is, all I can say is that it has dawned on even the concerned
populace quite slowly about the effect of designating those four
Growth Areas, for example, and indeed the Pathfinders in some
ways, but because of the sheer scale of the thing, the Growth
Areas. I did a seminar the other week for the Countryside Agency
in Letchworth Garden City, where they wanted to talk about growing
in terms of growing properly, being near the Growth Areas. It
was packed out with developers and others who were keen to know.
People are waking up to the fact of the potential, because this
is not a quick fix for two or three years. They cannot do that
unless they have the bodies, and the chances are, a bit like some
of the traditional building companies, the wet trade companies,
are actually investing in static factories—which of course
is a big investment for a building company that is used to getting
rid of its labour; in the wet trade, you turn up on a site, you
pick up your factory, and you move to another site. Once you have
a factory, and you have to look after an asset to generate a return,
you need to look at things with a bit more forward planning. So
they are doing that as a result of us having the Communities Plan.
It is not a master plan in terms of the totality of the detail,
but they know there is a plan to be driven forward. Therefore,
the private sector so far has shown itself willing to invest in
those areas, and it is investing in new skills, new assets, new
materials, new factories, and they have got to invest in people
as well. It will not be even across the country. There is not
one size fits all, as I say, but it is going in the right direction
when we discuss with developers and builders who want to come
in and talk to us, to explain to us what they are doing. I have
someone knocking on the door now who has a first-class record,
only builds on brownfield sites, wants to explain some of their
future plans without pre-judging anything. You have got to be
careful who you listen to. So there is an awful lot going on out
there at the moment which is all sending the right signals.
Q863 Joan Walley: I hope very much
that, if nothing else, this inquiry that this Committee is doing
will pass very strongly the message out to those people you have
just referred to. One of the things in the report that Sir John
Egan did was to propose 50 indicators for sustainable communities.
The Government's response to that does not seem to be 100% in
favour of that. Would you just like to comment on that?
Lord Rooker: Not really. I apologise.
That is flippant. I think they were directed to local authorities,
these 50?
Q864 Joan Walley: Do we not need
some kind of uniformity? How else can we measure?
Lord Rooker: We do.
Q865 Joan Walley: So what do we do
if we do not take his 50 indicators on board?
Lord Rooker: I am not going to
tie myself to a particular number, but we do need to be able to
judge performance. It is not so much us judging performance but
it is those who are the doers. We are not the doers in ODPM, by
the way; we are not a delivery department in the normal sense
of the word. The actual deliverers will want to judge their performance,
but in having the targets, it enables them to set up their management
structures for what they are going to try and achieve, so that
they have a target to work to. It is not just saying, "We
will have a programme and build what we can, or we will refurbish
what we can," but to have a target and know why they have
the target as well, and know how missing the target affects one
of the others. I think that is important.
Q866 Joan Walley: Should that not
be linked to Treasury targets in some ways, to performance indicators?
Lord Rooker: I do not know. Probably
not, but I do not know enough about the detail. The fact is that
I think in every walk of life, when you are doing things, if you
are going to manage and be professional about it, and you have
an outcome that you want to achieve, you need to set some targets.
You may hit them, you may not. It is not necessarily that if you
hit them, they are soft. It is just that you have adjusted your
management procedures and your assets and your resources to achieve
those targets that you thought were worthwhile when they were
set. I do not see any problem in setting the targets, but I am
not going to tie myself to 50 or 40 or 60. I see nothing wrong
in that. I know there is an argument the Government is suffering
from "targetitis" from Whitehall. Compared to 1997,
when I do not think there were any targets, you could make that
charge, but on the other hand, we are trying to modify and wrap
those practices into one and also have cross-departmental targets.
We share targets with the DTI and the Treasury, particularly on
regional growth and disparities in the regions.
Chairman: We have missed our target of
ending at 5 o'clock, but, Lord Rooker, thank you.
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