Conclusions and recommendations
1. We
recommended last year that details of the new partnership agreements
CLG is forging with the stakeholders responsible for delivery
of its policy goals should be set out in the Annual Report so
that we might judge their scope and effectiveness. This has not
been done. We repeat the recommendation for future Annual Reports.
(Paragraph 4)
2. The Department
needs urgently to tackle persistent concerns about its ability
to deliver across the range of policies for which it is responsible
and its ability to influence its strategic partners. (Paragraph
7)
3. The
Department must continue to expand its analytical capability and
to ensure that its staff possess the full range of skills its
arms-length delivery chains require. Negotiation, brokering and
persuasion are not the traditional levers of a Whitehall delivery
department, and nor are they easy skills to find or to measure.
The Secretary of State recognises that those skills are essential
to the success of her Department and its ability to meet its public
service agreements. The Department's stakeholders remain to be
convinced that they are sufficiently embedded in its staff and
culture. We share their doubts. (Paragraph
9)
4. We
commend the work CLG has done with its partners on the Decent
Homes programme, which is indeed an example of outstanding local
government delivery. We express deep disappointment, however,
that the Department proved unable to co-ordinate the work required
down its delivery chains sufficiently to achieve its initial target
of bringing all home up to decent standard by 2010, and we seek
a clear indication of what will be done to improve those homes
which will not be upgraded by then. (Paragraph
12)
5. Slower
response to fires is a worse service. Even if 80 per cent of
fire deaths occur before an emergency call is made, speed of response
still matters in the remaining 20 per cent of cases, to those
who may be injured by fire and to the owners of property on fire.
We recommend that research into the impact of traffic on response
times be extended to consider means of achieving quicker response.
(Paragraph 17)
6. We
welcome the introduction of a new, sharper PSA for community cohesion
as part of the 2007 CSR process. However, we are concerned that
performance in this area is being measured entirely against perceptions
of cohesion, and not against more objective criteria of disadvantage
such as rates of employment, educational attainment or housing
standards. In addition, the new performance indicators focus on
the national picture, and we recommend that CLG look beyond the
precise terms of its high-level PSA target to seek to influence
change in local areas where cohesion is in question or where new
threats to cohesion arise. (Paragraph 21)
7. The
fact that CLG wrongly reported itself as being on course to meet
its Equality PSA target is not only unacceptable but a further
indication of confusion about precisely what the Government wants
to do in this area, what mechanisms it means to employ, and how
urgently it needs to act. (Paragraph 22)
8. Responsibility
for gender equality rested with the Department for Communities
and Local Government for little over a year before passing to
the Government's new Equalities Office. During the three-year
period of the PSA targets set in 2004, responsibility also rested
at times with a Women's Unit within the Cabinet Office and with
the Department for Work and Pensions. We welcome both the new
Office and the creation of a new PSA as part of the CSR 2007 process.
We recommend strongly that responsibility for achieving the targets
set under that PSA remain with a single body throughout the period
of their existence to enable the maintenance of a continued, coherent
focus on their achievement. (Paragraph 23)
9. In
2005, we criticised the Department for overstating its achievements
in its Annual Report. Simply
omitting to mention failures such as the troubled implementation
of HIPs is no less unacceptable. (Paragraph
25)
10. For
the Permanent Secretary to suggest HIPS could not be introduced
because there were not enough inspectors is casuistry. There
were not enough inspectors because CLG first watered down and
then repeatedly delayed the introduction of HIPs.
(Paragraph 26)
11. CLG's
failure to engage effectively early enough with stakeholders is
both one of the principal reasons why HIPs were delayed and a
further example of the Department's inability to build the relationships
it needs if it is to succeed in taking partners with it across
the whole range of policy. (Paragraph 28)
12. The
long and tortuous process of introducing Home Information Packs
signals another failure of delivery on CLG's part, and the reasons
for that failure lie in poor preparation and a retreat by the
Department's ministerial team. (Paragraph
32)
13. We
can only conclude that decisions to delay the introduction of
Home Information Packs and then to phase them in for homes of
different sizes across a period of months were taken on political
rather than economic grounds, owing more to a failure of nerve
in the face of vocal opposition from the press and others than
to the general conditions prevailing in the housing market itself.
(Paragraph 32)
14. The
fact that FiReControl is progressing towards completion is, of
course, to be welcomed. However, the fact that the Department
cites a project two years behind schedule and 50 per cent over
its initial IT budget as an example of how it is improving its
delivery mechanisms highlights the persistent challenge that CLG
continues to face. It needs urgently to establish what the NAO
calls "a reputation amongst its partners for having enough
strategic influence to solve problems within Whitehall that are
creating obstacles to local success."
(Paragraph 36)
15.
We commend Mr Housden for ensuring that this year's Annual Report
was produced on time and those in his team who have produced a
report to a far higher standard than has been the case in previous
years. (Paragraph 37)
16. The
Report would benefit further from a consolidated table pulling
together the information set out individually in separate chapters
on each Public Service Agreement target.
(Paragraph 38)
17. We
recommend that relevant information from the Technical Note on
PSA target achievement be included in future Annual Reports to
enable easier checking of progress. (Paragraph
38)
18. Our
adverse comments on the Department's provision last year of full
and clear information to Parliament and the public have led to
significant improvement in its provision of information, particularly
in the answering of Parliamentary Questions, the clarity and detail
of the Annual Report, and the much more informative estimates
memoranda provided to Members of Parliament. We urge the Department
to continue to seek and implement such welcome improvements.
(Paragraph 43)
19. We
remain concerned about the perceived existence of bullying, harassment
and discrimination. Two years of work has brought no appreciable
improvement, in spite of the time and money spent on courses and
the clear desire of senior managers in the Department to solve
a chronic problem. Nor can the Department or the Permanent Secretary
be complacent on the grounds that other Departments perform just
as badly. We recommend that CLG review the effectiveness and
value for money of its actions over the past two years with a
view to refocusing its efforts (Paragraph
46)
| 
