Download or read book Communities and Local Government s Departmental Annual Report 2008 written by Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Communities and Local Government Committee and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2009 with total page 150 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In its report of last year on the Communities and Local Government's Departmental Annual Report 2007 (HC 170, session 2007-08, ISBN 9780215037978) the Committee commented on the particular nature of the Department's work: on its unusual reliance for the achievement of the goals Government has set it on a plethora of other Departments, agencies, non-departmental bodies, local authorities and other stakeholders; on the long, devolved delivery chains by which those goals therefore have to be delivered; and on the skills of influence, brokering and negotiation which are required to achieve them. In this Report the Committee assesses the progress made since last. The most recent Cabinet Office Capability Review concludes that there has been a positive "direction of travel" for CLG in that period, but the Committee concludes that there is still some way to go before CLG can be said to be performing at the highest achievable level of effectiveness. The Department's overall performance against its Public Service Agreement targets is likewise moving in the right direction but still short of full effectiveness. Achievement of efficiency targets is applauded. Finally, the report considers examples of particular policies which highlight some of the Department's strengths and weaknesses, and follow up some issues in earlier inquiries. These issues include: eco-towns; the Decent Homes programme; Home Information Packs; Fire Service response times; Firebuy; the FiReControl programme. The report also considers the Department's response to the serious flooding of summer 2007, and to the reviews which followed; and the mismanagement of European Regional Development Fund monies.

Download or read book Communities and Local Government s departmental annual report 2009 and the performance of the Department in 2008 09 written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Communities and Local Government Committee and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2010-03-05 with total page 196 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Incorporating HC 1038-i-ii, session 2008-09. The DCLG departmental annual report 2009 was published as Cm. 7598 (ISBN 9780101759823)

Download or read book Communities and Local Government written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Communities and Local Government Committee and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2008-01-03 with total page 160 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The single theme that underlies this report on the performance of the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) is: delivery. The DCLG faces unusual challenges as a result of how it is structured and its reliance on the performance of other departments, agencies, local authorities for the achievement of its goals set by the Government. Most of the money for which DCLG is responsible is spent for it by someone else - by over 450 local authorities, 47 local fire brigades, by large government agencies such as the soon-to-exist Homes and Communities Agency with a £2.2 billion budget. The challenge of delivery is examined under several headings: the capability review carried out by the Prime Minister's Delivery Unit; the ten public service agreements (focussing particularly on decent homes, fire and rescue services, race equality and community cohesion and gender equality); home information packs; FireLink and FiReControl, two major technology projects currently under way and both overdue and exceeding planned costs. On the Departmental report, the Committee welcomes the higher standard of the report, and the improvement in provision of full and clear information to Parliament and the public. A concern remains about the number of staff reporting feeling bullied, harassed or discriminated against.

Download or read book Existing Housing and Climate Change written by Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Communities and Local Government Committee and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2008 with total page 64 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The UK contains more than 26 million homes which, collectively, emitted 41.7 million tonnes of carbon dioxide in 2004, representing more than a quarter of the UK's emission of the main greenhouse gas driving climate change. The Government plans that the three million more households to be added to the housing stock over the next 12 years will be as carbon-neutral as modern building methods, technologies and regulation can make them. But the Government must pay as much attention to reducing the carbon footprint of the existing housing stock, given the UK's challenging target of reducing carbon emissions by 60 per cent by 2050. Domestic energy efficiency measures taken since 1970 have halved what UK domestic energy demand would otherwise be, but the amount of energy used now needs to decline sharply if the target is to be achieved. Chapters examine: regulation and encouragement; financial incentives; energy performance certificates; breaching the barriers to change; newer technologies; older buildings. There are many existing means to achieve rapid reductions in carbon emissions. such as cavity-wall insulation, loft insulation, double-glazing, condensing boilers, more efficient lighting. One problem is that of engaging with a greater proportion of the population and convincing them of the need for action. The proposed Green Homes Service due in late 2008 should provide a one-stop source of information for householders to overcome this "information barrier" to quick, simple and cost-effective action in many homes. The Committee believes that substantial and rapid change is possible if millions of individuals and families can be encouraged to rise to the challenge.

Download or read book Local government finance written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Communities and Local Government Committee and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2007-08-07 with total page 44 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sir Michael Lyons, in his report "Place-shaping: a shared ambition for the future of local government" (2007, ISBN 9780119898545) proposed allowing local authorities to make marginal changes to the national non-domestic rate which businesses pay as their contribution to the provision of local services. The Government's recent green paper "The governance of Britain" (Cm. 7170, ISBN 9780101717021) contemplates enabling local communities to take decisions about how to use local funds, and a substantive response to the Lyons report is expected later in 2007. The Committee builds on these developments to argue that local authorities should be able to levy a supplementary business rate to increase or decrease the business rate paid by local businesses. Whilst the decision-making should be left to local authorities, the Government should set down some basic parameters to define the operation of supplementary business rates and confine the purposes to which any revenue generated might be applied. This reform to local government revenue should be seen as a first step in a development process of financial devolution.

Download or read book Work of the Committee in 2007 written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Communities and Local Government Committee and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2008-01-25 with total page 24 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Work of the Committee In 2007 : Fourth report of session 2007-08, report, together with formal Minutes

Download or read book Equality written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Communities and Local Government Committee and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2007-08-02 with total page 118 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Committee undertook this enquiry to examine the issues surrounding the establishment of the Commission for Equality and Human Rights (CEHR) and to further the debate on equality in preparation for the introduction of a Single Equality Bill. Despite some practical concerns that the CEHR might not be ready in time, that its budget will not be sufficient, and there might be some loss of expertise, the Committee supports the creation of a body that will bring together all the strands of equality and human rights. At the same time the Government should press ahead with a Single Equality Bill to remove simplify current provisions, remove anomalies; and promote action to prevent unfair discrimination.

Download or read book The Provision of Public Toilets written by House of Commons Communities and Local G and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2008-10-22 with total page 152 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Public toilets matter to everybody, regardless of their age, class, ethnic origin, gender, mental ability or physical ability, and they are even more important to certain sections of society, including older people, disabled people, women, families with young children and tourists. While the Public Health Act 1936 gives local authorities a power to provide public toilets, it imposes no duty to do so, and this lack of compulsion, together with a perception of nuisance associated with them, has arguably resulted in a steady decline in the provision of public toilets in recent years. This decline needs to be addressed. The Committee supports the Government's Strategic Guide on the provision of public toilets, "Improving Public Access to Better Quality Toilets" (2008), which highlighted existing powers at the disposal of local authorities that can be used to improve public access to toilets. Some local authorities have developed strategies for the provision of clean, safe, accessible toilets, including partnerships with local businesses (such as pubs, cafes and shops) that make their own toilets available to non-customers. Other local authorities are less committed, which has led to great disparities between different towns and regions. Some local authorities may have used the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 as an excuse to close public toilets, rather than bring them up to the standards required by the Act. This report seeks to consider the evidence and to produce simple and practical recommendations to improve this important social amenity. The over-riding recommendation is that the Government imposes a duty on local authorities to develop a public toilet strategy, which should involve consultation with the local community, for their own area.

Download or read book FiReControl written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Communities and Local Government Committee and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2010 with total page 196 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Government's programme to replace 46 local fire and rescue service control rooms with nine purpose-built regional control centres has been inadequately planned, poorly executed, and badly managed. Given the investment of public funds already committed, and the benefits that will accrue, the MPs conclude that the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) should press ahead with the FireControl project so long as Ministers can agree urgently a viable project plan that will see the project go live by a target date of mid-2011 and in which the main stakeholders can have confidence. The excessive cost of abandoning the project - an extra £8 million more than it will cost to complete - indicates the Department should continue with the project so long as it also: examines alternatives and provides assurances that FiReControl represents the best viable option for the future of Fire and Rescue Services; resolves its contractual dispute with EADS and implements a viable project plan; addresses the shortcomings in its management of the project; consults fully with FRS staff and professionals to define end-user requirements; provides assurances that the safety and security of the Olympic Games will not be compromised by the roll-out of new Regional Control Centres. DCLG should urgently to draw up and consult on contingency plans for any further failures in the FiReControl programme to ensure ongoing safe and effective fire and rescue services cover across the whole country.

Download or read book Refuse collection written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Communities and Local Government Committee and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2008-02-21 with total page 40 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Committee remains to be convinced that incentive or charging schemes will work well in England. The operation of only five pilot schemes (out of a total of 354 local authorities) by 2012, covering four different collection methods, in a mixture of rural and urban settings, is unlikely to provide sufficient information to judge whether all authorities should be able to offer such collection schemes. The Committee cannot see why any council would set up a complicated incentive or charging scheme that earns it no money and risks widespread public disapproval. The pilot schemes will have government funding, but that will not be available should there be a roll-out across all authorities, and the Committee calls for a full assessment of the implications for council budgets of instigating such schemes. No scheme will start before 2009, but will run for three years, which means that financial incentive schemes will have no discernible effect on local authorities' duty to meet European Union landfill diversion targets before penalties fall due in 2010 and 2013. The government's decision to cap the amounts local authorities can offer as incentives or take in charges runs counter to its rhetoric on local decision making. The Committee believes the government has retreated from its proposals outlined in the "Waste strategy for England 2007" (Cm. 7086, ISBN 9780101708623). The result is a messy compromise attracting hostile media coverage for a limited set of pilot schemes that will have little impact before EU fines fall due. The government should reconsider devolving the power to introduce schemes to local authorities themselves, as they are best placed to judge how refuse should be collected and whether local residents should be asked to gain incentives by increasing their recycling or to pay additional charges if they do not.

Download or read book Ordnance Survey written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Communities and Local Government Committee and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2008-02-02 with total page 114 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Ordnance Survey has existed for 216 years as a publicly funded and managed agency of government. It became a Trading Fund, then an Executive Agency in 1980s and 1990s, and is now overseen by the Department for Communities and Local Government. The Survey though ceased to be publicly funded in October 2006, and since that time is required to make a profit and so engage in commercial competition. This in turn raises the question of whether such a dominant organisation can operate fairly in the information market. A previous report (HCP 481, session 2001-02, ISBN 9780215003812), concluded that there needed to be defined boundaries between public service and national interest work. The Communities and Local Government Committee has set out 12 conclusions and recommendations, including: now that Ordnance Survey is self supporting, both funding its public task and commercial work entirely from its own revenues, the distinction between public duty and commercial interest is no longer clear; the Committee believes that the Surveys' annual report and accounts should distinguish between its public and private tasks; that the Survey needs to co-operate with the private sector in regard of licences that cover intellectual property rights, particularly if the licence is too stringent in its' requirements, such as requiring competitors not to compete with the Survey; greater clarity is needed on what use can be made of data bought from the Survey and that licensing conditions appear to be too complex and inflexible.

Download or read book Coastal towns written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Communities and Local Government Committee and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2007-11-21 with total page 28 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Government's first response (Cm. 7126, ISBN 97801017712620) to the Committee's report on coastal towns (2nd report session 2006-07, HCP 351, ISBN 9780215032843) was not well-received by the Committee, other members of Parliament and organisations such as the British Resorts and Destinations Association. It was felt that the response failed to recognise the necessity for specific measures to support coastal communities. The Committee requested a more considered response from the new Secretary of State. The further response is published as appendix 3. The Government now accepts a number of the Committee's recommendations, especially the need for further research on the challenges facing these communities, and the disproportionately high rise in the number of people claiming sickness and disability benefit. The Committee welcomes the Government's intention to establish a cross-departmental working group on issues affecting coastal towns and its commitment to establish a coastal areas network supported by Government and the regional development agencies.

Download or read book Local authority investments written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Communities and Local Government Committee and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2009-06-11 with total page 84 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The collapse of Icelandic financial institutions in the autumn of 2008 brought to light not only the surprisingly large amounts of money invested by local authorities, but also the fact that local authorities had invested nearly £1 billion in Iceland, funds that were consequently at risk. This prompted the Committee to launch an inquiry into local authority investments, in order to understand current practice, to study the roles and responsibilities of various groups and individuals involved, and to make recommendations intended to limit the exposure of local authority funds to such risk in future. The unusual nature of the recent financial situation should not excuse failures that occurred in local authority financial arrangements. The inquiry reveals a degree of misunderstanding, misinformation and complacency on the part of some crucial players, both within local authorities and in the wider financial sector, which contributed to the putting of taxpayers' money at unnecessary risk. There is significant room for improvement in the guidance and codes of practice for local authorities: to be more explicit in certain areas in order to make the system more transparent; to explain where the responsibilities lie, both in executing and in overseeing treasury management, including more rigorous training and reporting; and to highlight the variations of service on offer by different external service providers. It was the role of external service providers, specifically some of the treasury management advisers, which caused the Committee most concern and the Financial Services Authority should investigate the services provided by them as soon as possible and should take a more active role in their regulation.

Download or read book Community Cohesion and Migration written by Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Communities and Local Government Committee and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2008 with total page 84 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A new form of migration is evident, with many economic migrants not planning to stay long term, and this presents challenges for integration and cohesion. Many migrants make significant contributions to local communities, for instance working in our public services such as the NHS. The arrival of new migrants need not have a detrimental effect on cohesion, although it can have a negative effect on community cohesion, particularly in areas that are experiencing a rapid pace of change and/or deprivation. There is significant public anxiety about migration, some of which arises from practical concerns about its effect on local communities. Such concerns include: the limited English of new arrivals; the problems associated with Houses in Multiple Occupation (HMOs) lived in by migrants; a perceived increase in anti-social behaviour; and pressures on public services. Recent migration has placed pressures on local public services in areas that have experienced rapid inward migration, including pressures on schools, translation services, social care, English language teaching, policing and the NHS. These pressures are currently left unfunded by Government, because resource allocations are being made on the basis of flawed population data, and this shortfall should be addressed immediately. The Committee calls for concerted action by Government, local authorities and community groups to address the concerns and problem areas and to encourage integration and involvement. The Government has to ensure that English language tuition is accessible to migrants, as demand far outstrips supply at present.

Download or read book Towards a more equal society written by Hills, John and published by Policy Press. This book was released on 2009-02-25 with total page 408 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When New Labour came to power in 1997, its leaders asked for it to be judged after ten years on its success in making Britain 'a more equal society'. As it approaches the end of an unprecedented third term in office, this book asks whether Britain has indeed moved in that direction. The highly successful earlier volume A more equal society? was described by Polly Toynbee as the LSE's mighty judgement on inequality. Now this second volume by the same team of authors provides an independent assessment of the success or otherwise of New Labour's policies over a longer period. It provides: · consideration by a range of expert authors of a broad set of indicators and policy areas affecting poverty, inequality and social exclusion; · analysis of developments up to the third term on areas including income inequality, education, employment, health inequalities, neighbourhoods, minority ethnic groups, children and older people; · an assessment of outcomes a decade on, asking whether policies stood up to the challenges, and whether successful strategies have been sustained or have run out of steam; chapters on migration, social attitudes, the devolved administrations, the new Equality and Human Rights Commission, and future pressures. The book is essential reading for academic and student audiences with an interest in contemporary social policy, as well as for all those seeking an objective account of Labour's achievements in power.

Download or read book The rural housing question written by Satsangi, Madhu and published by Policy Press. This book was released on 2010-09-01 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For the past century, governments have been compelled, time and again, to return to the search for solutions to the housing and economic challenges posed by a restructuring countryside. The rural housing question is an analysis of the complexity of housing and development tensions in the rural areas of England, Wales and Scotland. It analyses a range of topics: from attitudes to rural development, economic change, land use, planning and counter-urbanisation; through retirement and ageing, leisure consumption, lifestyle shifts and homelessness; to public and private house building, private and public renting and community initiatives. Across this spectrum of concerns, it attempts to isolate the fundamental tensions that give the rural housing question an intractable quality. The book is aimed at policy makers, researchers, students and anyone with an interest in the future of the British countryside.

Download or read book Fourth validation compendium report written by Great Britain: National Audit Office and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2007-12-19 with total page 128 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 2004, the Government announced 110 Public Service Agreement (PSA) targets for 17 Departments covering the period 2005-08. PSA targets express the priority outcomes that Departments are seeking to achieve nationally and internationally, and cover key aspects of the Government's social, economic and environmental policy. Large sums of public money are devoted to the programmes designed to deliver them. This NAO report summarises the results of its examination of the data systems used by twelve government departments to monitor and report progress against their 2005-08 PSA targets, covering a total of 237 data systems. Overall Departments have successfully taken steps to improve the quality of their data systems. There are still improvements that can be made to increase the relevance and reliability of data used in the reporting process. The NAO makes a number of recommendations on specification of data systems, their operation, and the reporting of data. A companion volume (HCP 22-I, ISBN 9780102951615) is available separately which contains the NAO's summarised findings.