Relationships with other Departments
21. A year ago, we identified the need to achieve
sustainable communities objectives through the agency of other
Government Departments as a significant challenge for what was
then the ODPM. We reported our scepticism about the Department's
ability to secure the co-ordinated action needed to meet those
goals.[21] The ODPM responded
merely by noting that other Departments were fully involved in
the delivery of sustainable communities.[22]
22. There is no question that other Departments should
be fully involved in delivery of a range of DCLG policies. The
Department's first PSA target, for example, is to "Tackle
social exclusion and deliver neighbourhood renewal". The
target itself specifies that the Department must help other Departments
meet targets narrowing the gap in "health, education, crime,
worklessness, housing and liveability outcomes", with the
obvious implication that work needs to be done in concert with,
at least, the Department of Health, the Department for Education
and Skills (DfES), the Home Office and the Department for Work
and Pensions (DWP). PSA 2 (regional economic performance) is shared
with the DTI and the Treasury. PSA 8 (safer, greener public spaces
and improvement of the built environment) is shared with no fewer
than eight other Departments.[23]
23. In some areas, the DCLG responsibilities identified
in paragraph 19 also cut across the work of other Departments.
In housing, planning and local government, for example, the Department
needs to interact with the Department for Culture, Media and Sport,
the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA),
the DTI and the Department for Transport. The Annual Report notes
that the new responsibilities for voluntary and community engagement,
race inequalities and community cohesion were inherited from the
Home Office and those for gender equality, ethnic diversity and
co-operative employment relations came from the DTI, requiring,
at least in the short term, co-ordination with those Departments.[24]
24. In short, the DCLG's expanded role requires considerably
greater co-ordination and communication with other Departments
than that which we had identified as a challenge for the ODPM.
This again raises the question of how effectively the DCLG is
able to set and achieve goals that rely heavily on the performance
of other Departments. The Secretary of State recognised that close
co-operation with other Government Departments is required: "Where
appropriate we come together to create a common policy".[25]
25. Differing approaches between Departments can
make it difficult to see how well the DCLG is doing when its performance
on shared targets is measured against data compiled elsewhere
and primarily for different purposes. For example, the Department's
performance against its PSA 1 target on Neighbourhood Renewal
relies, as noted above, on "the delivery of floor targets
by Government Departments who own them, in the 6 key outcome areas".[26]
Data were not, however, available in time for the Annual Report's
publication from the Department for Work and Pensions or the Department
for Education and Skills, leaving the DCLG to conclude that progress
towards its PSA target was "on course" on the basis
of the best available information, and on the basis of unofficial
data not strong enough to be included in the report.[27]
In this case, the data later confirmed that progress was in fact
on course, and that the DCLG had in fact been properly cautious
in its estimate of progress. However, the "on course"
estimate published in the Annual Report, although it proved to
be broadly correct, was at the time merely an estimate, and in
this case one that understated true performance. We criticised
the Department last year for an "unjustifiably favourable
presentation of its achievements".[28]
It may seem harsh, then, to accuse it this year of presentation
that is unjustifiably unfavourable. Quite simply, however, the
absence of accurate, up-to-date data will result in its reporting
its progress wrongly—in either direction—and it is
clear that there are difficulties in obtaining such data from
other Departments. The Director-General, Places and Communities,
Mr Montgomery, told us that the Department had worked hard to
match floor targets with other Departments, but added that
"each Department might pick particular
areas to focus on that reflect its own most difficult challenges
[…] there should be symmetry but each Department might have
a slightly different list of focus areas that it chooses to target
more resource to".[29]
He also said that arrangements were in place for joint departmental
working:
"We do very good joint work with all of our
partner Departments to try and generate extra focus and extra
traction in areas that are struggling [...] We have communicated
our priorities quite clearly to other government Departments.
They tend to do problem-solving work jointly with us rather than
separate from us, and we pick those areas that are on each Department's
list of areas that need extra technical assistance or extra resource
to give them an additional push".[30]
26. The
DCLG's role as lead Department in several areas of Government
policy requires it to set clear strategic goals of its own and
to arrange suitable mechanisms to persuade other Departments and
non-departmental public bodies across Government of the vision
behind those goals and the actions required of them if shared
targets are to be reached. Clear arrangements are also required
to facilitate the most accurate possible measurement of shared
goals, particularly when measurement relies on data collected
by other Departments with subtly different policy targets. We
would like to see the nature of these agreements and details of
the co-operative work undertaken spelled out in future Annual
Reports.
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