2 Procedural and practical developments
7. Our experience with the Winter Supplementary Estimates
this year led to a deeper appreciation of the new power granted
to Select Committees this session enabling the publication of
written evidence on the internet without any immediate requirement
to print. This development enabled us to disseminate information
quickly, widely and efficiently and thus to inform debate in Committee,
in the House itself and more broadly in a manner which would previously
have been practically impossible. We are grateful to the House
for granting this power and to the Liaison Committee for pressing
for the implementation of this long-desired facility.
8. Our own practices and procedures have also developed
since our appointment. The Committee now holds an informal seminar
in advance of almost every major inquiry and for our latest inquiry,
into The Supply of Rented Housing, two seminars were held.
These seminars have enabled us, by exploring issues in depth with
a range of experts, to prepare more thoroughly for oral examinations
and to concentrate more fully on exploiting the expertise of witnesses.
This means that the inevitably limited time we have for oral examination
of witnesses is used more effectively.
9. Part of the success of these seminars rests on
the expanded pool of expertise which the Committee is now able
to tap into as a result of the new procedures we adopted at the
beginning of the Parliament for identifying potential sources
of specialist advice. In December 2006 we issued a public invitation
to anyone with expertise in the fields relevant to the Committee's
remit to put themselves forward as potential specialist advisers.
Over a third of the specialist advisers we have used this year
first came to our attention as a result of this exercise. Our
general invitation was re-issued in November 2006 in line with
our intention to repeat the exercise annually. This will help
to ensure that the net for capturing specialist advice is drawn
as widely as possible: this year it also gave us the opportunity
specifically to seek expressions of interest from experts in those
policy fields for which the Department has acquired responsibility
during the course of the year (see para 10).
10. Since the Committee was appointed in July 2005,
it had been our task to scrutinise the Office of the Deputy Prime
Minister. In the machinery of Government changes which took place
in May 2006, what had been the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister
became the Department for Communities and Local Government. As
well as retaining policy responsibility for housing, regeneration,
planning, regional policy and local government, new areas were
added including communities and civil renewal functions (transferred
from the Home Office); equality policy, including policies on
race, faith, gender and sexual orientation (which had previously
been spread across a number of Government departments); sponsorship
of the new Commission for Equality and Human Rights; and the Women
and Equality Unit was transferred to the new Department from the
Department of Trade and Industry.[4]
At the same time, the new Secretary of State for Communities and
Local Government, Rt Hon. Ruth Kelly MP, became the Cabinet Minister
for Women. The Government stated that these changes had created
a Department with "a powerful new remit to promote community
cohesion and equality…much better placed to deliver on this
important remit".[5]
That is a claim which we will test over the coming months and
years. What was immediately apparent was that our already challengingly
broad scrutiny remit had been made significantly broader.
11. In November 2006 we held a study seminar at Cumberland
Lodge in Windsor Great Park which was in part designed to help
us focus on the primary issues within the policy areas for which
we acquired scrutiny responsibilities. This will, in turn, inform
decisions on our future work programme. We would like to record
our gratitude to Darra Singh OBE, Chief Executive of Ealing Council
and Chair of the Commission on Integration and Cohesion; Dr Rachel
Pillai, Fellow at the Institute of Public Policy Research; and
Melody Hossaini, co-Chair of the board of trustees of the UK Youth
Parliament for their valuable contributions to our deliberations.
12. Our study seminar also provided the opportunity
to examine our own internal working practices and explore potential
means to increase both effectiveness and efficiency. Issues relating
to working practices considered during the day included:
- The frequency and timing of
meetings;
- Alternative approaches to the inquiry process;
- Effective examination of witnesses;
- Broadening the evidence base;
- Following-up on previous reports and recommendations;
- Media relations and communications, and
- Induction for Members joining the Committee.
13. Some of these changes will be put into practice
during 2007. We would like to express formally our gratitude to
Kelvin MacDonald, Director of Policy and Practice at the Royal
Town Planning Institute, who gave us the benefit of his experience
not just as a close observer of the Committee but also as a witness
on more than one occasion and as a former specialist adviser.
It is our intention and our aspiration that the new approaches
adopted in areas as diverse as public engagement and presentation
of findings should serve to strengthen our scrutiny of the Department
for Communities and Local Government and thus enable the more
effective discharge of our responsibilities to the House.
4 The Department for Communities and Local Government
defines 'civil renewal' in the following terms: "Civil Renewal
is about people and government, working together to make life
better. It involves more people being able to influence decisions
about their communities, and more people taking responsibility
for tackling local problems, rather than expecting others to".
(http://www.communities.gov.uk/index.asp?id=1502436)
Back
5
10 Downing Street Press Notice on the Machinery of Government
Changes, 5 May 2006, (http://www.number10.gov.uk/output/Page9391.asp) Back
|
