House of Commons - Communities and Local Government's Departmental Annual Report 2009, and the performance of the Department in 2008-09 - Communities and Local Government Committee

Communities and Local Government's Departmental Annual Report 2009, and the performance of the Department in 2008-09 - Communities and Local Government Committee Contents

2 CLG and its measurable results

Public Service Agreements (PSAs) and Departmental Strategic Objectives (DSOs)

2. The Public Service Agreement (PSA) framework for the Comprehensive Spending Review 2007 years (2008-09 to 2010-11) has changed compared to the previous Spending Review period. The number of PSAs has reduced to 20 across Government. Each new PSA will be led by a single Department, but will rely on several Departments' input to be met. CLG leads on two PSAs:

To increase long term housing supply and affordability (PSA20);
To build more cohesive, empowered and active communities (PSA 21).

3. Specific to the Department for Communities and Local Government (CLG) are six Departmental Strategic Objectives. The 2009 Departmental Annual Report (hereafter "DAR") describes the aims of the DSOs: they "set out what we aim to achieve over the three years from 1 April 2008 and give a framework for measuring the progress we make".[2] The DSOs and PSAs are set out in Figure 1 below, together with reported progress in them from the 2009 DAR and Autumn Performance Report.Figure 1: The Department's Strategic Objectives - overall progress

CSR07 Target APR assessment DAR assessment Change

DSO 1: Local government
To support local government that empowers individuals and communities and delivers high quality services efficiently
Some progress
Improvement made against 3 out of 7 indicators
Some progress
Improvement made against 3 out of 7 indicators

DSO 2: Housing
To improve the supply, environmental performance and quality of housing that is more responsive to the needs of individuals, communities and the economy
Strong progress
(12 of 17)
Some progress
(8 of 17)

DSO 3: Prosperous communities
To build prosperous communities by improving the economic performance of cities, sub-regions and local areas, promoting regeneration and tackling deprivation
Not yet assessed
(1 of 9)
Not yet assessed
(2 of 9)

DSO 4: Cohesive communities
To develop communities that are cohesive, active and resilient to extremism
Some progress
(2 of 5)
Some progress
(2 of 5)

DSO 5: Planning
To provide a more efficient, effective and transparent planning system that supports and facilitates sustainable development, including the Government's objectives in relation to housing growth, infrastructure delivery, economic development and climate change
Some progress
(1 of 8)
No progress
(0 of 8)

DSO 6: Fire and Rescue Services
Ensuring safer communities by providing the framework for the Fire and Rescue Service and other agencies to prevent and respond to emergencies
Strong progress
(3 of 4)
Some progress
(2 of 4)

PSA 20: Long term housing supply
Increase long term housing supply and affordability
Strong progress
(4 of 6)
Some progress
(4 of 6)

PSA 21: Cohesive communities
Build more cohesive, empowered and active communities
Not yet assessed
Progress is not yet assessed on 4 of 6 indicators
Not yet assessed
Progress is not yet assessed on 5 of 6 indicators

Source: Department's Annual Report 2009 and Autumn Performance Report 2009

4. The Performance Brief by the National Audit Office (NAO) comments on CLG's progress against these DSOs as reported in the 2009 DAR:

[T]he Department reported that it has made some progress against four out its six DSOs. It reported no progress overall in providing a more efficient, effective and transparent planning system (DSO 5) and was unable to report progress against its objective of building stronger communities (DSO 3). The Department did not report strong progress against any of its DSOs in 2008-09.[3]

5. Overall, performance as reported in the Autumn Performance Report has slightly improved since the publication of the DAR, most notably with DSO 2 (Housing) where 12 out of 17 indicators show an improvement, up from 8 in the DAR. The other two DSOs showing an overall improvement (DSOs 5 and 6) have done so by an improvement in only one indicator each. Performance on DSO 3 (Prosperous communities) and DSO 5 (Planning) remains weak.

6. Within the limited confines of this inquiry, we have not considered the Department's performance against all its DSOs in any detail. Rather, in questioning Ministers and officials, we concentrated on two areas in which we have taken a particular interest in the rest of our work, and which illustrate particularly well the challenges which the Department has faced in the period since our last report on its performance—housing (PSA 20 and DSO 2) and planning (DSO 5)—and one further area which we have regularly considered in the context of this annual inquiry—fire and rescue services (DSO 6). We offer some brief comments on each below, before making some remarks about the Department's performance in the round.

Housing (PSA 20 and DSO 2)

7. Progress towards PSA 20 and DSO 2 is judged by a variety of indicators, broadly covering three areas: (i) housing supply, affordability and environmental performance; (ii) the condition of housing for the most vulnerable; and (iii) enabling the most vulnerable to access or maintain settled accommodation. The indicator of arguably the most importance in contributing to overall government policy objectives concerns the number of net additional homes provided. The Government has set a target to deliver 240,000 homes per year by 2016, "to bring greater stability and affordability to the housing market".[4] Annual housing supply in England reached 207,500 net additional dwellings in the financial year 2007-08, the latest year for which data are available.[5] However, new house completions, which make up the majority of new housing supply, fell by 20% in 2008-9 compared with 2007-8 and are at a level similar to 2002-03. If the net supply of additional homes follows a similar trend, it will require a strong recovery to bring the trajectory back into line to meet the 2016 target.[6] These figures are illustrated in the graph below, taken from the NAO briefing:Figure 2: Net additional homes provided and new house completions in England since 2001-02

Source: Department's Annual Report and housing supply statistics

8. CLG's 2009 Autumn Performance Report (APR) comments

The latest published figures show that annual housing supply reached 207,500 net additional dwellings in 2007-08. This was a 4 per cent increase on the 199,000 net additional homes supplied in the previous year, meaning that the indicator is currently on track. However, global financial and economic conditions have had a significant impact upon the delivery of housing, as implied by the most recent quarterly housing statistics. Annual housing completions in England totalled 126,500 in the 12 months to June 2009, down by 22 per cent compared with the 12 months to June 2008. This is likely to result in a severe drop in the 2008-09 net additions figures compared to 2007-08.[7]

9. Within this total, the Government has also set itself a target for the number of affordable homes delivered. The APR reports on progress on this indicator as follows:

The DSO target is the delivery of 70,000 affordable homes per year by 2010-11, including 45,000 for social rent. In 2008-09, there were 55,770 affordable homes completed (of which 31,090 were for social rent) compared with 53,730 in 2007-08, 44,330 in 2006-07 and the baseline figure of 45,980 in 2005-06. This indicator is currently off track, in the light of the significant impact that the global financial and economic conditions are having upon the delivery of affordable housing. The Housing Pledge announcement in June^[[8]^] committed the Department to a revised delivery target of over 55,000 and over 56,000 affordable homes in 2009-10 and 2010-11 respectively.[9]

10. Although the APR reports the indicator for number of net additional homes provided as "on track", as the narrative comment which we reproduce above shows, this is largely based on pre-credit crunch figures. As the diagram above shows very clearly, future reports will be likely to show the Government falling well behind the trajectory of housing building needed to attain the target of 240,000 homes per year by 2016. This has led many to call on the Government to abandon those targets as unrealistic. Meanwhile, the APR reports the indicator for number of affordable homes delivered as "off track", despite the significant decrease in the targets for 2009-10 and 2010-11 described above.

11. We considered the calls to abandon the targets in an inquiry, Housing and the credit crunch, on which we took evidence in late 2008, and which we followed up with further evidence in June 2009. The reports of both these inquiries rejected these calls and continued to support the Government's house-building targets. We maintain that position now. The credit crunch has not reduced levels of need for new housing nor affected the need to address years of undersupply.

12. We report below on some of the measures which the Government has taken since we last reported on its performance to address the issue of chronic undersupply and the effects of the credit crunch. Meanwhile, we commend the Department for the focus which it has maintained on these issues and for the progress which it has reported up to now. However, we anticipate that future reports will show much weaker progress as the effects of the credit crunch feed through into reported figures for new housing completions. The Department will need to continue to report clearly and honestly on progress, both to ensure accountability for its performance and to enable it to adjust its programmes appropriately to take account of the effects of its policies.

Planning (DSO 5)

13. The Government's housing targets as expressed in CLG's DSO 2—as well as other important Government objectives—are heavily underpinned by targets set in another crucial DSO, on planning. The first two indicators of progress against this objective concern the production of Regional Spatial Strategies and Local Development Plan Documents.[10] As the 2009 Departmental Annual Report says, "Regional Spatial Strategies (RSSs) and Local Development Frameworks (LDFs) have an important role in ensuring the Government's objectives on housing growth and identifying land for housing supply, and other priorities such as economic recovery and tackling climate change are delivered".[11]

14. It is therefore of considerable concern that neither of these indicators show progress to be on track to meet the overall objective. The 2009 DAR reported that the target to have seven out of eight RSSs in place by the end of 2008-09 had been missed; and that only 10 per cent of development plan documents (DPDs) had been completed, against a target of 80 per cent by March 2011. The most recent Autumn Performance Report shows no further progress on RSSs and a rise to just 12 per cent of local authorities having adopted the necessary DPDs.

15. Richard McCarthy, Director of Housing and Planning at CLG, told us when we questioned him about slow progress on DPDs:

The implementation of the Local Development Framework programme has been a challenge and it is disappointing to report to you, which we have done, that we have still quite a long way to go to reach the target for the end of the Spending Review period. What I can tell you is we think we have around 20 per cent of the core documents now published and we have a great deal of work which we are starting to pick up through our direct engagement authorities across at least another 40 per cent which will no doubt appear, I hope, over the next 12-18 months. […] We have put in place a whole series of support services and changes to try and make it easier for local authorities to produce LDFs. Ministers remain committed to LDFs. […] we have reduced and improved the regulations, tried to remove elements of over-engineering in the system and tried to make it easier for local authorities to complete LDFs. We give them advice through the guidance published by the Planning Advisory Service. We now offer extra advice through Government Offices and the Planning Inspectorate. We still remain very open to engaging continuously with them and other stakeholders to try and make this process work because it is essential that local authorities do have those key plans in place that create the spatial plans for their areas. It gives developers, be they house builders or other investors, the sense of certainty they want. It is a real challenge, and we are not trying to diminish that. I hope what I can show you […] is that we are doing a lot of work to try and respond to that challenge.[12]

16. In July 2008 we published a report, Planning Matters: labour shortages and skills gaps, which addressed issues of direct relevance to the achievement of DSO 5. That report highlighted long-standing and acute shortages of labour and skills in planning, concluding that "there is a significant risk that major Government targets for development and regeneration will be missed because our planning system is unable to manage either the volume or the variety of tasks it will be asked to perform between now and 2020".[13] The most recent reported achievement against the targets in this DSO appear to be confirming our fears.

17. When we questioned the Minister for Planning, Rt Hon John Healey, on these issues, he suggested that the Government had "stepped up what we have been trying to do to make sure that there are sufficient skilled planners in the system"[14]—notwithstanding the lack of any reference to the issue in the 2009 DAR. Mr Healey went on to refer to a number of steps which the Government had taken to increase the number of planners in the system,[15] evidence which was later augmented by a supplementary memorandum on the same point.[16] He was, however, less convincing when we questioned him about the role of the Homes and Communities Agency Academy (HCAA), a body which the Government told us was intended, among other things, "to raise the profile of planning and other sustainable communities professions and increase entry into those industries",[17] and appeared unaware of an exchange of correspondence between himself and our Chair in which the Chair had expressed concern about the effectiveness of the HCAA and in particular queried the value added by HCAA to activities already being delivered by others.[18]

18. We are concerned that, despite Mr McCarthy's reassurance that "Ministers remain committed to LDFs", there does not appear to be the same Ministerial commitment to identifying, and where appropriate operating, the levers for delivering the planning skills and manpower pool that local authorities need to access if they are to deliver LDFs in a timely manner. Our concern is not allayed by the cuts in Housing and Planning Delivery Grant—"an important measure of support" with reference to capacity building in planning, according to the Government's response to Planning Matters[19]—which the then Minister for Planning announced in May 2009.[20] We reemphasise the importance of maintaining the supply of planning skills to the achievement not only of the central aim of a decent home for all but to a range of Government objectives. We call for greater Ministerial focus on this area and hope that it will result in improved performance being reported in the next Departmental Annual Report.

Fire and Rescue Services (DSO 6)

19. DSO 6 is to "ensure safer communities by providing the framework for the Fire and Rescue Service and other agencies to prevent and respond to emergencies."[21] The Department is performing well against the first two of the underpinning indicators relating to this DSO (6.1, numbers of primary fires, related fatalities and non-fatal casualties, and 6.2, number of primary and secondary deliberate fires), as illustrated by the following tables:Figure 2: Incidence of primary fires, fatalities due to primary fires and non-fatal casualties in England in 2006-07 and 2007--08

Incidents (per 100,000 population)

Primary fires Fatalities due to primary fires Non-fatal casualties (excluding precautionary checks)

2006-07 254.4 0.72 12.5

2007-08 225.5 0.70 11.3

Change (2006-07 to 2007-08) -11 per cent - 2 per cent - 10 per cent

Source: Department for Communities and Local Government Fire Statistics Figure 3: Incidence of primary and secondary deliberate fires in England in 2006-07 and 2007-08

Incidents (per 100,000 population)

Primary deliberate fires Secondary deliberate fires

2006-07 113.7 312.3

2007-08 97.5 267.4

Change (2006-07 to 2007-08) - 14 per cent - 14 per cent

Source: Department for Communities and Local Government Fire Statistics

20. We asked Sir Ken Knight, Chief Fire and Rescue Adviser, whether he was confident of being able to continue to achieve improvements in performance against these indicators. He replied:

No, I am not, Chair, because they are now at a very helpful low base. The numbers of accidental fires in the home are now about 200 and have come down significantly, sometimes because of those very large step changes, such as 18 or 20 years ago with the foam filled furniture regulations which undoubtedly had an effect, but more particularly the Home Fire Risk Checks that are now taking place. Accidental fires do still occur and when they occur, [...] they distort that very low base to a great extent. We have seen that this year again, I am afraid, but still two per cent down on last year's figures. It has been incredibly successful.[22]

21. Progress has also been demonstrated against the third indicator underpinning this DSO, Fire and Rescue Service Performance. This indicator calls for "improvements in aggregate scores achieved by Fire and Rescue Authorities (FRAs) in the Use of Resources and Direction of Travel components of the 2008 CPA compared to 2007."[23] As the NAO told us, the 2008 CPA scores show that:

The number of FRAs achieving the top two and bottom two scores for Use of Resources scores remained static— one FRA moved up into the top categories from the bottom, and one moved down; and
The number of FRAs achieving the top two scores for Direction of Travel increased significantly from 28 in 2007 to 37 in 2008, with only one FRA showing no improvement from 2007.

22. Nonetheless, there remains rooms for further improvement in FRA performance. An Audit Commission national study, published in December 2008, identified scope to further improve efficiency throughout the Fire and Rescue Service. Whilst overall efficiency saving targets are being achieved, four (out of 46) FRAs had contributed nearly half of all the savings made by 2008.[24]

23. Regrettably, performance against the fourth indicator relating to the Fire and Rescue Service—"Delivery of a co-ordinated Fire and Resilience programme"—gives much greater cause for concern. The target consists of "Achieving planned milestones and deliverables for the New Dimension, FiReControl and Firelink projects and completing the programme by 2012." The National Audit Office summarised progress against the various elements of this target as follows:

The Department reported some progress in all three projects and therefore considers that progress has been made against some elements of this indicator. Firelink and FiReControl, however, slipped from their original timescales and as such delivery of all projects by 2012 remains challenging.

New Dimension

New Dimension is a programme to enhance the ability of FRSs to respond to major disruptive events by:

Providing specialist vehicles and equipment (such as high volume pumps and vehicles which aid in the detection, identification and monitoring of dangerous substances);
Funding training for firefighters to use the new equipment; and
Supporting planning for deployment of the equipment in the case of an emergency.

The equipment is now fully operational.

The NAO reported on the New Dimension Programme in October 2008, at which time the Department had committed £330 million to the programme.We found that the New Dimension programme has enhanced the Fire and Rescue Services' capacity to respond to terrorist and other large-scale emergency events, and has already contributed significantly to the handling of a number of major incidents. Avoidable costs and delays, however, were incurred in the procurement of the equipment, which presented significant risks to value for money.

FiReControl

The FiReControl project will replace 46 local control centres with a network of nine regional control centres. In November 2008, the Department announced a delay to the programme: at this point switch-over to the first three regional control centres was planned for summer 2010 (a delay of nine months), with the full system expected to be in place by spring 2012 (a delay of five months).In July 2009, the Department announced a further ten month extension to this timetable, so that the first FRSs will switch over to the Regional Control Centres in spring 2011, and the last will switch over by the end of 2012. The latest iteration of the project business case, released in January 2009, estimates that the FiReControl project will cost, in total, £217.6 million more than current provision.This is more than was anticipated in the 2007 full business case, which identified an equivalent figure of £32.9 million.

Firelink

Firelink is a £350 million project to replace telecommunication for the Fire Service throughout Great Britain with a digital network. The Department made progress on this project in 2008-09—it reported that the roll-out of radio appliances in one region was complete and was progressing in the remaining eight regions by March 2009. The Department reported in its Annual Report that the main milestone for 2009, completion of 'Phase A' network infrastructure in nine regions, was now delayed and due to be met later in the year. The delays to this project have resulted in the Department underspending by £18 million. Operational roll-out of radios to all nine regions is due to be complete by March 2010.

Firebuy

Firebuy was established to deliver FRS procurement in England. In June 2008, the Department published a review, which concluded that Firebuy:

Did not, as intended, cover its costs from income from the FRS from its third year of operation (2008-09);
Had not achieved wide stakeholder buy-in from the FRS. The Service has no sense of ownership of the organisation or its priorities;
Could not systematically demonstrate the benefits its contracts bring over the alternatives and that FRAs resent being compelled to use these contracts; and
Had a structure that was perceived as unwieldy and unrepresentative. As a small NDPB it has relatively high overhead costs.[25]

24. We questioned both the Permanent Secretary and the Chief Fire and Rescue Adviser, and later Ministers, on the management of these projects, particularly FiReControl.[26] We have subsequently embarked upon a more detailed examination of the FiReControl project, so do not propose to go into any detail here. However, it is clear from the National Audit Office's comments on the range of projects undertaken in the Fire Service that project management skills are lacking in the Department and that this is having a serious effect on the achievement of the Department's objectives. We return to this theme in our next chapter.

25. Meanwhile, however, we commend the Department and the Fire and Rescue Service for the progress which it has made on the most important of its DSOs, reducing the incidence of fires and the number of deaths and casualties from them.

Performance against efficiency targets

VALUE FOR MONEY SAVINGS—CSR07

26. In CSR07 the Department agreed to deliver £887 million of savings by March 2011. As with other departments, these savings must be cash-releasing, net of any costs incurred, and sustainable. According to the Autumn Performance Report, only £40 million of savings (five per cent) had been made by March 2009 towards the overall target, leaving £847 million of savings to be made in the remaining two years of the CSR period.

New affordable housing supply

27. The Department had planned for the Homes and Communities Agency to deliver the vast majority of value for money savings, some £734 million, from efficiency gains in affordable housing development. It was to do this by making the investment programme more competitive, maximising the private finance contribution (particularly by encouraging housing associations to invest through borrowing), and managing the risk of planning new developments more effectively. The APR reports that no such savings had been made by March 2009 and acknowledges the risk that the £734 million target will not be met because of the downturn in the housing market and the reduction in expected contributions from private development. The APR notes that the Department is still carrying out work to estimate what savings can now be made: even though in the Government's 2009 Value for Money update document the Department committed to reporting on progress against the target in summer 2009.[27] We are pursuing this point, and some wider points about the management of these planned savings, with the Department, and will publish its response on our website in due course.

Fire and Rescue Services

28. The Department planned to achieve £110 million of efficiency savings by March 2011 through the ongoing modernisation process in the Fire and Rescue Services, including improvements to procurement methods and better risk management. During 2008-09 some £40 million of savings were made, and a further £46 million are forecast for 2009-10.

Administration

29. The remaining £43 million of efficiency gains planned by the Department were due to come from administrative savings arising from sharing corporate services and rationalising the Department's estate. The Department did not make any such savings in 2008-09 but the APR claims that the Department is still on track to meet this target by 2011.

VALUE FOR MONEY SAVINGS—BUDGET 2009

30. The Department committed to an additional £100 million of savings by March 2011 as part of the £5 billion of savings announced in the 2008 Pre-Budget Report. In the Government's 2009 Value for Money update[28] this figure was shown as being made up of:

£65 million from more effective use of funds to tackle difficult housing estates
£20 million from the Housing and Planning Delivery Grant
£15 million from a range of programmes including planning budgets.

The APR states that the Department is on course to meet the £100 million target but provides no information on savings made to date.

RELOCATION OF STAFF OUT OF LONDON AND THE SOUTH EAST

31. The Department had relocated 220 full time equivalent posts out of London and the South East by March 2009, and states in the APR that it is confident of meeting its target of 240 posts by March 2010. However, no additional posts have been relocated since the 2007-08 DAR reported 220 posts as of June 2008.

EFFICIENCY TARGETS: CONCLUSION

32. Last year, we congratulated the Department on the achievement of its SR04 efficiency targets, but said that we would "watch with interest" to see whether it was capable of achieving the further demanding targets which have been set for it in the CSR07 period. As is evident from the above, achievement of the Department's overall target of £887 million in efficiency savings by March 2011 will be extremely challenging. Failure to do so will leave a very significant hole in CLG's plans. We look forward to seeing what contingency plans the Department has in place to identify other sources of efficiency savings that will contribute to the £887 million target, or otherwise to cover the shortfall should they not be achieved. Meanwhile, we also look forward to seeing the details of how the Department will achieve its target for staff relocation, and the additional £100 million of savings by March 2011 announced in the 2008 Pre-Budget Report.

Accountability and the Department's performance in the round

33. When reporting on its performance, Communities and Local Government has to face some particularly demanding critics. One of the Department's main stakeholders is of course local government itself, which routinely now describes itself as "the most efficient part of the public sector".[29] Commenting on the publication of CLG's Departmental Annual Report, LGA Vice-Chairman Cllr Richard Kemp is quoted as having said "If DCLG were a council it would be rated 'two-star' and 'failing to improve' ... Central government should be setting the example but in fact they have been unable to match local government's performance."[30]

34. CLG might perhaps be grateful that Cllr Kemp saw fit to award it as many as two stars. For our part, we will refrain from comparing the Department's performance with local government's. The main reason why we will do so is that CLG does not face anything like as rigorous a performance regime as local authorities. There is no "Comprehensive Area Assessment" of it or any other central Government Department. Instead, its stakeholders must rely on the Department's assessment of its own performance, as set out in Annual Reports and Autumn Performance Reports and as judged against DSO and PSA targets.

35. It is therefore regrettable that the Department's reporting of its performance against its targets remains so patchy and unclear. This is not a criticism of the Departmental Annual Report itself, which we praised last year for the clear and helpful presentation of its assessment of the Department's work.[31] Rather, it is a criticism of the performance framework itself. We made this point last year, concluding:

[N]ext time the Secretary of State comes before us to discuss her Department's overall performance, we do not expect her to have to rely on complaints about the nature of the indicators which have been set in order to explain apparently poor performance. We look forward to seeing not only improved overall performance by the Department, but also a performance framework which provides genuine accountability both to Parliament and to the Department's many stakeholders for the whole range of its work.[32]

36. We were therefore particularly disappointed this year to hear the new Secretary of State make very similar excuses about the problems of measuring the progress of the Department:

I do not think they [the DSOs] were wrong but I think that if you were to repeat the exercise for the next CSR my conclusion would be that you have to look very carefully at the balance between having a measure which is a good strategic measure which, if you can get it right, gives you a better cross-government measure of how well you are doing so you have the sense of the ideal measure and those that you can practically put in place and measure in a reasonable time scale. From my point of view I would say that I find it frustrating to be 18 months into the CSR and to have quite a number of areas of my Department's work where I cannot readily put my hands on a set of figures that says how well I am doing.[33]

37. We share the Secretary of State's frustration at being unable—nearly two years now into the Comprehensive Spending Review period—readily to put our hands on a set of figures which show how well the Department is doing. The most recent Autumn Performance Report offers a fuller picture than did the DAR, but even now is still not complete. If the system of setting, and reporting progress against, Public Service Agreement and Departmental Strategic Objective targets is to be worthwhile, much greater efforts need to be made to ensure that information is available at a much earlier stage by which to judge whether progress is being made. Otherwise accountability for Departmental performance becomes impossible to maintain effectively.

2 Department for Communities and Local Government Annual Report 2009 (Cm 7598), para 2.3. Back

3 National Audit Office, Performance of the Department for Communities and Local Government 2008-09: Briefing for the House of Commons Communities and Local Government Committee, October 2009, para 3.8 (available from www.nao.gov.uk). Hereafter "NAO Performance Brief". Back

4 Cm 7598, para 4.3. Back

5 NAO Performance Brief, para 3.18. Back

6 Ibid. Back

7 Communities and Local Government Autumn Performance Report 2009 (Cm 7770), para 2.1. Back

8 "We have already committed to investing an extra £1.2 billion this year to build new houses. But to ensure that we meet the needs of young families across the country, we will expand this building programme by investing a further £1.5 billion over the next two years to deliver 20,000 additional energy efficient, affordable homes to rent or buy. This housing investment package will also create an estimated 45,000 additional jobs in the construction and related industries over the full three-year construction period." (Building Britain's Future, Cm 7654, June 2009). Back

9 Cm 7770, para 2.3. Back

10 Cm 7598, page 128. Back

11 Cm 7598, para 7.12. Back

12 Q145 Back

13 Eleventh Report of Session 2007-08 (HC 517), para 6. Back