RT HON CAROLINE FLINT MP AND MR DAVID MORRIS

19 MAY 2008

  Q220  Mr Betts: Not surprisingly, we had Sir John Egan here to give evidence, given it was his report that tended to focus or begin the programme of action on the whole issue on sustainable skills, but I think we were all surprised when we said to him, "How is it going, Sir John?", and he said, "Don't ask me, nobody has talked to me about it since I produced the report". Is that not a bit surprising?

  Caroline Flint: I am surprised about that, because my information is something like 20 recommendations, I understand, have been pretty much taken on board and dealt with. I know the ASC have been trying to meet with Sir John for a while, and I hope that comes to fruition, but as far as I understand, inheriting this brief, most of the 28 recommendations have been taken on board.

  Q221  Mr Betts: So there is regular monitoring then of the recommendations of the report and whether they have been enacted?

  Mr Morris: Of the 24 recommendations, I think they were all broadly accepted by the Government, and as far as I am aware, nearly all of them have been implemented in one form or another.

  Q222  Mr Betts: Are there any that have not?

  Mr Morris: I am not aware of any.

  Q223  Mr Betts: So they all have?

  Mr Morris: Yes.

  Q224  Mr Betts: Would it not be a good idea, do you think, as a matter of good practice, when someone produces a report, which generally is welcomed across the board, including by Government, that maybe a couple of years afterwards, the keeper of that report, the author of it, was just asked for a review, an independent review, as to how they perceive matters to have moved on since the report was produced?

  Caroline Flint: I cannot say anything off the top of my head here wrongly providing information about what has happened with those 24 recommendations, absolutely. Whether or not a review, because review summons up all sorts of different things, is the right language I would use for following it through, I am not sure. I think it is quite right to ask, what happened with the 24 recommendations, and what information do we have as to the impact they are having, and I am happy for us to look at those and provide the Committee with as much as we can give them on that.

  Q225  Mr Betts: I suppose there is a little bit of scepticism sometimes, that if the recommendations actually relate to governments and civil servants, sometimes the people who monitor them themselves might be less harsh on whether they have been actually implemented than someone looking from outside independently. Would that be fair comment?

  Caroline Flint: Well, we have scrutiny in this place as well, so you can always have—not that I am asking for one, but you can always have another inquiry on the 24. There are different ways, obviously, that when reviews are undertaken in departments, about what the follow-up is. I just think what shape that takes can be different, and I am not saying anything against this particular Committee, but we can end up into a bit of a review-itis situation, where no sooner do we do one thing, we have another review, and I am not sure as a vehicle that that is always—I am not saying never—is the best way forward, but I think it is fair enough to say, well, what happened to the recommendations? The other thing is, in this particular regard, I understand we have basically taken broadly all of them on board and have tried to execute them. In other reviews, the Government does not always take on board all the recommendations that have been made, so it sounds to me like in one sense this was a pretty good outcome for his review.

  Q226  Chair: As you know, Minister, we had the Academy of Sustainable Communities just before you, they gave a robust defence of their performance, although I have to say that many of our previous witnesses had been less than complimentary. What is your view on the ASC? Do you think it has fulfilled the role that Egan envisaged for it?

  Caroline Flint: From what I have read and seen, I think it is doing a pretty good job. I think it has worked well in terms of particularly some of the work around staff in local authorities being able to access various courses. I understand they have established with a number of universities further opportunities for the qualification base to be accessible and to be enhanced. I think in terms of the move into the Homes and Communities Agency, that is the right move, I think it will allow them to have a distinct role, but also I think be embedded with the other work the organisation will be taking on, in terms of obviously its housing work and other planning support work, so I think overall it has pretty much done what has been expected. Their new business plan, I think, is due to be signed off by my colleague, Iain Wright, I do not think it has happened yet, in the not too distant future.

  Q227  Chair: How will they be better able to work with the new Homes and Communities Agency than they could have done up until now with the component parts, English Partnerships and the Housing Corporation?

  Caroline Flint: I think for the same reason, that English Partnerships and the Housing Corporation, coming together into HCA, and bringing together, if you like, the land and the housing elements, and I think there are very valid and good reasons for that. Again, it is not that they have not done good work or work with those organisations, I think it is just about simplifying things, better alignment, and as I say, a better home for them, whilst retaining their particular role in terms of qualifications and working with academia to support that and give that sort of sense of focus.

  Mr Morris: Could I just add that being part of a bigger organisation with a regional structure in place, who will be having dialogue with local authorities on a regular basis, should give the ASC more input, if you like, into the work on the ground and possibly greater focus on what it does as part of that process, but that is part of the discussion about what its role is within the new agency, which is part of an ongoing discussion.

  Q228  Chair: That implies a certain lack of focus up until now.

  Caroline Flint: I think it is just also about—as David says, the regional framework that I have discussed with Sir Bob about the HCA will give, I think, a better sense of networking capacity there that is quite difficult for a relatively small organisation. 20 people, I think, are employed by the ASC, and I think again, there is a sort of strengthening there, a bigger organisation. The trick will be about how not to lose their particular role, and the work they are able to get on with, which is very important in terms of developing people's skills, and the sector in terms of the staff and the profession.

  Q229  Andrew George: Could I just come back to, if you like, the other side of the coin of the questions I was asking earlier? Primarily, and your answer was addressing itself to the answer of pulling more people into the profession, the question is: has the Government made any kind of assessment of those aspects of Government policy which are perhaps pushing people out of the profession, the initiatives, the large number of agencies, the regionalisation, in other words the sucking of powers away from local authorities, for example?

  Caroline Flint: Come back to me if I have not understood your question, but I actually do not think a lot of what we are doing is necessarily about pulling powers away from local authorities. Actually, we have put a lot of powers to local authorities, with the local development frameworks, their core strategies, the work we are doing through the planning bill at the moment, and discussions around things like the community infrastructure levy and so forth, you know, it seems to me that in terms of really that wider corporate vision that local authorities should have in terms of—I think your language was place setting in communities trying to pull that together in a way that I think is possibly more motivating than the sense of this, I think, as Emily was suggesting, the sort of tick box application process. I think it presents a quite exciting and undoubtedly challenging time for those who are currently working in planning or, to be honest, for those in local authorities who have everything to gain by getting this sort of corporate vision strategy right. Now the other side of it is about what do we do to maybe make the process better, not just for those working in the local authority who are processing applications, but for those who are making applications as well. We have the end-to-end review at the moment on the planning application itself, David Pretty and Joanna Killian working on that, one from the construction sector, one person from senior management level in local authorities. We have the work going on in terms of permitted development, which will take out of the process again potentially a number of applications that currently come in, it is not that they are not important, but actually in the big scheme of things, people should maybe be able to get on with their solar panels and other things too, and to try and disentangle maybe some of the processes that people find, particularly those working in local authorities, time-consuming and not particularly necessarily the most motivating work that they would like to spend their time on.

  Q230  Andrew George: I think my question was really whether you have assessed the effect of various initiatives like the ones perhaps you have described, I do not know, or other aspects of Government policy might have created an environment in which people in the profession have said, "We are no longer prepared to put up with this", and they are leaving. In other words, whether you have made any kind of assessment of that.

  Caroline Flint: Well, insofar as we recognise that there is a vacancy issue to deal with, we have recognised that actually we need to attract more young people into the profession, and as we talked earlier, we do recognise that we have a number of people who are coming up to retirement going out of the profession as well, so all the things we have discussed so far I think are part of a jigsaw that we feel, David and colleagues in the Department having spent a considerable amount of time talking to those working on the frontline, various reports that have been done over the years and research into this, we hope will tackle some of those different things that people have raised that are a problem, but I think there is more work to be done on this, and part of it, I think, again is about how local authorities also work particularly with the developers, and how we can get that relationship working better or as good as we know it does work in other areas, which does not by any means hand everything over to the developers, but actually just makes the process more engaging, more productive, good outcomes for local authority, and reasonable outcomes in line with planning law for the developers.

  Andrew George: Finally, do you and does the Government have a view about the training of councillors? I know that local authorities have strong feelings because they are worried about the decisions they might make, but does the Government have a view, just leave it to local authorities to decide?

  Q231  Chair: Do you think it should be mandatory?

  Caroline Flint: I am not signed up to it being compulsory or mandatory. Councillors play different roles, and I think certainly all councillors having an understanding as part of their induction into how planning fits into the service provision, what is happening in their communities, regeneration housing, whatever, is a good idea. We are not short of courses out there, I have to say, and training opportunities for that. Likewise, on another level, for those who actually sit on the scrutiny panels or planning committees, there is obviously another order there for those people, in terms of what they have to understand as their role, what they can and cannot do and so forth. But I think what I would say is that I do not think it is about a councillor necessarily doing training that is almost like a qualification as a planner or anything like that, because I think what is important here again is the relationship of the professionals within the organisation to those lay members and councillors, and the advice they give to them, and the way in which that advice is given. Then I think the particular, if you like, role that an elected person brings to that function, which is not to be the professional, I think it is somewhat different. So I think it is quite difficult to say "everyone must be trained to this level", because I am not sure that would work and it would not necessarily work in terms of the turnover you might need when you are actually dealing on the ground with the changes we have in our elected system.

  Q232  Andrew George: But surely you would agree that there is need for mandatory training just to protect the councillors legally, given it is a quasi-legal status, those on the planning committee need to be cautioned about the potentially catastrophic effects --

  Caroline Flint: Obviously I would hope, just as a Minister, when someone gives me advice, and the lawyers in the Department say, "Minister, I just need to tell you that this is legal, this is maybe"—that sounds terrible, "This is legal, this is not so legal", we never get any advice like that! But when you get advice from your lawyers, this is the other issue, at any given stage, if you are dealing with a planning application or what have you, and as a Member of Parliament, obviously I have represented different cases and different issues or sought clarity on issues probably 99% of the time, you need good advice from your planners and your lawyers to tell you just what the legal proprieties are, and what is legally right and what is not legally right, and to be honest, I do not think there is a training course per se that could do that for a councillor to cover all eventualities. There is obviously a basic sense of what your role is and your legal role and quasi-legal role, but ultimately, on a day-to-day basis, when you are faced with different applications, I think that is where you need the good advice from within your local authority from good staff, and then you have to make a judgment, just as Ministers have to make a judgment.

  Chair: Thank you very much indeed, Minister.