Overheard:
“The council is selling its assets” …
Response: “No, it isn’t, it’s offloading costs to very reluctant buyers who get no discount for taking them on!”
Daily Archives: 6 Jan 2016
One-third of Government transformation projects unlikely to transform anything, says National Audit Office
“… There are currently 149 projects in the Government Major Project Portfolio, with a combined whole-life cost of £511bn and an expected spend of £25bn in 2015-16. Such projects require Treasury approval based on their size, risk and impact.
…The NAO said that nearly 80% of the Portfolio projects due to be delivered by 2019-20 were to either transform or change the way that services were delivered or accessed.
However, transformation programmes could present the greatest risk of failure and there was a need to balance ambition and realism in setting goals, it argued. “For instance, the Better Care Fund was a challenging initiative which ministers paused and redesigned after the early planning and preparations did not match its scale of ambition.”
The watchdog described progress in improving portfolio management as “disappointing”, with no single organisation having a view of the whole portfolio of government projects.
“The Portfolio provides increased assurance, and other central departments have an increased role in assuring, approving and improving quality of delivery,” the NAO said. “But an effective mechanism still needs to be developed for prioritising projects across government or judging whether individual departments have the capacity and capability to deliver them. The NAO has often reported on the difficulties caused for government projects by unrealistic expectations and over-optimism.”
Amyas Morse, head of the National Audit Office, said: “I acknowledge that a number of positive steps have been taken by the Authority and client departments. At the same time, I am concerned that a third of projects monitored by the Authority are red or amber-red and the overall picture of progress on project performance is opaque. More effort is needed if the success rate of project delivery is to improve. “
Housing Bill debate: started 8.50 pm ended 2 am
The government has been described as “not grown up” for going ahead with a debate over its housing bill that did not begin until 8.50pm and continued to 2am.
The debate on the report stage of the bill was pushed back to late on Tuesday after a series of urgent ministerial statements, by the prime minister and the home secretary, were announced in the Commons.
Labour tried to get the debate postponed until a later date, but MPs voted by 303 to 195 in favour of pushing on with a session to scrutinise the legislation on Tuesday evening.
The housing bill will offer discounts of up to £102,700 in London and £77,000 in the rest of England to people renting from housing associations who want to buy their homes. The policy would not apply in Scotland or Wales, where the right to buy is being abolished.
The policy would be partly funded by requiring councils to sell the top third of their most valuable council homes from their remaining stock. The government also quietly tabled an amendment to the housing and planning bill that sets a maximum of five-year terms for new secure tenancies.
Fiona Mactaggart, the Labour MP for Slough, told MPs: “I am very unhappy about the programme motion, merely because of the time we are starting to debate it: 10 minutes to 9pm.”
She said this meant that “really important clauses” would be considered after midnight. “There are a number of really important issues which, frankly, I think our constituents, who are concerned about housing and planning, would not expect to be decided after midnight,” she said.
That is not grown up; it is a return to the days when I first came to this house and voted against beating children at 4am. I vowed never to have such important votes at that time of the morning again.”
Brandon Lewis, the minister for housing and planning, said the arrangements for the debate had been “agreed through the usual channels to ensure proper and full scrutiny of the bill”.
“Given the comments made by some members about the time until which we may be here tonight, all colleagues have the ability to exercise self-restraint if they wish, and from a ministerial point of view, I will do that to ensure that backbenchers have a good opportunity to speak,” he said.
Roberta Blackman-Woods said:
“Never in my experience of many bills in this house have I witnessed 65 pages of government new clauses and amendments being produced at the last minute for a bill that is 145 pages long,” she said. “That is simply appalling and means that there will be no proper scrutiny in this house of almost a third of the bill.
“We wish to register our strong view that that is no way for legislation to be made, and the government should do the honourable thing and reprogramme this debate.”
EDDC and DCC raise council taxes
EDDC by 1.9%
DCC by 2.00%
and both slash services as government help dries up and more services are privatised. 2% is maximum allowed by central government before triggering a referendum.
Here is what Claire Wright thinks about the DCC rise:
Planning Bill: the potential for corruption
” … Labour’s shadow planning minister Roberta Blackman-Woods said: “I cannot believe that the government are serious about this. I know that they tend to carry out pilots, but they must realise that the potential for this mechanism to generate a degree of corruption and totally inappropriate conflicts of interest is probably endless. These new clauses need to be subjected to a degree of scrutiny that will not be possible this evening.”
She said that ministers’ decision to table the amendment late in the bill’s passage through Parliament meant that it has “not been possible for the planning agencies that will be affected by the changes to have a say or to have any input into the process. That is quite frankly disgraceful, because these will be huge changes to the planning system”.
Communities and local government select committee chair Clive Betts said that the new clause is “effectively about the privatisation of the planning service. That is what it potentially amounts to after pilots have been brought in”.
He said: “Let me explore what that might mean. Does it mean that an individual or organisation will be free to shop around for whichever alternative provider they think can give them the best chance of getting a planning application accepted? Will they be able to look at the track record of providers around the country?”
Betts added: “My worry here is that someone parachuted in from outside, with no knowledge of an area but a track record of dealing with applications quickly, may not be as sensitive to the needs of a local community.
“If I was a local MP in an area with particular planning pressures and had concerns about getting those decisions right, I would start to be very worried about the scenario that is developing.”
http://www.planningresource.co.uk/article/1378327/mps-blast-plan-privatise-processing-applications
Daily Telegraph: “Developers can circumvent planning departments that take too long to clear approvals”
Sneaked in hurriedly just before Christmas, changes to planning rules means that developers will be able to go to private planning consultants of their choice rather than to local authority planning departments – a backdoor privatisation of the planning function.
Inevitably, private consultants will have worked closely with developers in the past.
This is potentially the biggest change to planning law for decades and is being introduced with no consultation and the minimum of debate.
It creates a loophole where, if a planning application is controversial, a local authority can deliberately drag its heels, see the application passed to a private consultant of the developer’s choosing and be approved. The local authority can then throw up its hands and say “Sorry, not our fault” when it patently is.
Current local authority planners will be seduced by initial high salaries offered by private consultants, leaving planning departments unable to function and with private consultants holding the balance of power.
Here is how today’s Daily Telegraph reports yesterday’s “debate” on something already agreed behind closed doors.
What a Christmas present for developers!
“Developers will be able to circumvent planning departments that take too long to process applications.
Housing minister Brandon Lewis told MPs the Government wants to pilot schemes which allow people to choose who processes their planning applications to speed up the process.
However, they were warned that allowing people to “shop around” by outsourcing planning applications risk undermining council planning departments.
He said this would “test the benefits of introducing competition” while local authorities will still make decisions on the applications.
But Labour’s Helen Hayes, a member of the Communities and Local Government Committee, warned the policy is “potentially very damaging” as it “weakens the accountability” of local authority planning services.
Speaking during report stage of the Housing and Planning Bill, Mr Lewis explained the new regulations would allow the communities secretary to decide who is able to offer their services to process planning applications.
He said: “Let me be very clear this evening with the House – this is about competition for the processing of applications, not the determination of applications.
“The democratic determination of planning applications by local planning authorities is a fundamental pillar of the planning system and will remain the case during any pilot schemes the secretary of state brings forward.
“Let me also be clear with the House that new clause 43 will require that any pilot schemes brought forward by the secretary of state will be for a limited period of time, specified in the regulations.”
Further proposals also outline how fees will be developed and allow the communities secretary to intervene if fees are judged “excessive”, MPs heard.
Mr Lewis said: “These new clauses will allow us to test in specific areas of the country and for a limited period of time the benefits of allowing planning applicants to choose who processes their applications.
“It’ll lead to a more efficient and effective planning system, better able to secure the development of homes and other facilities that our communities need and want.
“Introducing choice to the applicant enables them to shop around for services that best meet their needs and enable innovation in service provision, bringing new resources into the planning system and driving down costs while improving performance.”
But Ms Hayes, the MP for Dulwich and West Norwood, said: “New clause 43 introduces the outsourcing of planning applications. This clause is potentially very damaging.
“It weakens the accountability of local planning services and it removes with one hand the fees which the Government is enabling local authorities to raise with another.
“Fundamentally, it’s a solution to a symptom of the problem of the disproportionate effect of local government cuts on planning departments.
“This is a symptom which we alleviated by the proper resourcing, which a system of new planning fees will facilitate.
“So I urge the Government to rethink this proposal, which simply undermines local planning departments.”
East Devon Watch 