News

Greg Clark appointed levelling up secretary during Conservative mutiny that ends in Sunak or Truss (or Johnson?) as Prime Minister

Greg Clark has been appointed Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities following the sacking of Michael Gove by outgoing prime minister Boris Johnson. The MP for Tunbridge Wells has previously held ministerial positions as Secretary of State in the Department of Communities and Local Government, Business Secretary and Universities, Science and Cities Minister. He served in both David Cameron’s and Theresa May’s governments.

The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) was hit hard in the wave of ministerial resignations in protest against Boris Johnson’s disastrous reign, with three local goverment associated junior ministers throwing in the towel. Kemi Badenoch (a local government/equalities minister who resigned on July 6 and went on to launch an unsuccessful bid for the Tory leadership), Neil O’Brien (known as ‘Mr Levelling Up’, resigned in the same letter as Badenoch) and Stuart Andrew (resigned as housing minister on July 6, but unlike Badenoch and O’Brien was offered a ministerial job by Johnson just two days after he resigned. He accepted, and is currently Minister of State for Prisons and Probation.

Replacing Andrew as housing minister is MP for Nuneaton, Arley and Hartshill, Marcus Jones, a former council leader who has defended the government’s controversial expansion of permitted development rights, and has described himself as “not antidevelopment”.

Following news of his levelling-up appointment, Greg Clark tweeted: “We have a duty to ensure that the country has a functioning government in the weeks ahead. Having been Secretary of State at the Communities department before, I will do my best to provide stability, good governance and accountability to Parliament at this important time.”

Clark’s first job was to publish the contract which turns the Building Safety Repairs Pledge - in which signatories pledge to fix critical fire safety works in buildings over 11 metres which they have developed or refurbished over the last 30 years - into a legally binding document. Clark expects it to be signed by all 48 pledging organisations ‘within a month’.

Meanwhile, the race to become PM, which started with 11 hopefuls, has now been whittled down to former Chancellor Rishi Sunak and current Foreign Secretary Liz Truss after ‘clever money bet’ Penny Mordaunt fell at the fifth hurdle, missing out by eight votes on taking her leadership proposals to the 175,000-odd party members. The final result is expected on September 5. Until then, Johnson continues to make a number of political and

REGENERATION

Dept for Environment to consult on development grants for brownfield sites

In a bid to speed up development, the government has announced that Councils across England could receive grants to help transform underused and derelict sites. The grants would refund the costs of Landfill Tax where it acts as a barrier to redeveloping brownfield and contaminated land. Current Enironment Minsiter Lord Benyon said: “Landfill tax has done a fantastic job in preventing unnecessary waste – but it’s important it doesn’t act as a barrier to regeneration.”

A four-week Call for Evidence will seek views on the design of a scheme to support councils and how to ensure a grant scheme would not undermine the waste hierarchy or incentivise illegal dumping. Applicants would need to demonstrate that use of landfill is reasonably necessary.

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Current Secretary of State for Levelling Up Greg Clark

civil service appoinments while his time as Conservative leader comes to an end. Or does it? According to the Telegraph, over 1800 party members have demanded that he’s on the final ballot as a ‘third option’. Loyalist Andrew Cruddas, who sits in the Lords courtesy of Johnson, organised the signatories.

He said: “We think it is only fair because Boris was the members choice back in 2019 and he has been constructively removed by the Parliamentary Party without referral to the membership. By adding Boris to the final ballot to make it a three-horse race means that the winner will have the backing of the membership.”

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WORKFORCE SKILLS

LGA calls for devolved employment and skills funding

The Local Government Association says that the number of people improving their skills or finding work could increase by 15 per cent if councils had more control over employment and skills provision.

Analysis by the Learning and Work Institute found that about £20 billion is spent by central government on at least 49 national employment and skills related schemes or services in England, managed by nine Whitehall departments and agencies. This includes programmes such as the Levelling Up Fund, Towns Fund and Help to Grow, as well as support to get people into work and training including Restart, Bootcamps and the National Careers Service.

The LGA says that the disjointed nature of these schemes makes it difficult to target and join up provision for learners, unemployed people, career changers and businesses.The Association suggests that a single place-based fund, where powers over national employment and skills-related schemes are devolved to local leaders, could better support unemployed people into work and improve residents’ skills, and makes more sense than councils bidding for separate pots of funding for different projects, which cannot be used together. This would mean an end to competitive bidding and a move to long-term funding attached to specified, achievable targets.

Mayor Marvin Rees, Chair of the LGA’s City Regions Board, said: “Every area has its own unique labour market including a mix of jobs, qualification levels, unemployment and vacancies. Councils and combined authorities want to unlock this potential talent, using their unrivalled local insight and knowledge to bring employers, training providers and jobseekers together with their proven track record in delivering more for less.

“They are making the best of the national system, but the Government now needs to do its bit by joining up the system and working with us to plan and deliver more effective support to residents and businesses.”

“Our research shows that councils can create new jobs and offer new training in our shared endeavour to level up the country.”

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Government told to resubmit Net Zero plan after legal challenge

The High Court has ruled that the Government’s net zero strategy breaches the Climate Change Act, and needs to be strengthened.

In January, environmental law firm ClientEarth submitted the case to the High Court and teamed up with Friends of the Earth and Good Law Project for a full hearing. The team argued that the Government had failed to sufficiently show that its policies will reduce emissions to meet its legally binding carbon budgets. They also argued that there was not enough information about the policies and their expected effects in the strategy for effective scrutiny from Parliament and the public.

During the case, it was revealed that the Government’s plans only account for 95 per cent of the reductions needed to meet the sixth carbon budget. The ruling states that the public and parliament were not made aware of the shortfall. The Court also found that the Minister for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, Greg Hands, responsible signing off the strategy, did not have the legally required information on how carbon budgets would be met. The Government must now update its climate strategy within eight months to include a quantified account of how its policies will actually achieve climate targets. The updated strategy will then be presented to parliament for scrutiny by MPs.

ClientEarth lawyer Sam Hunter-Jones said: “This decision is a breakthrough moment in the fight against climate delay and inaction. It forces the Government to put in place climate plans that will actually address the crisis. It’s also an opportunity to move further and faster away from the expensive fossil fuels that are adding to the crippling cost of living crisis people are facing.”

The ruling came on the day some parts of the country experienced 40 degree temperatures for the first time ever.

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CITY POLITICS

Liverpool CC votes to scrap mayoral role

Liverpool City Council has voted to scrap the position of elected city mayor despite the public voting to keep the role. Councillors voted by a majority of 51 to 18 to axe the role following the May 2023 local elections and return to a council leader and cabinet executive model. The move follows a public consultation that revealed Liverpudlians wanted to keep the mayor However only four per cent of residents responded to the poll.

Richard Kemp, leader of the city’s Liberal Democrat opposition group, said the low number of responses showed the process was flawed. He said: “The letter sent out looked like a final demand and there was no explanation of the options,”

Green Party leader Tom Crone said the process was “botched and absolutely mishandled”.

Current mayor Joanne Anderson was elected in May last year and ran her campaign based on scrapping the position.She said at the time “If selected and elected as Mayor of Liverpool, I will actively campaign to give myself the boot! The people of our city deserve the final say, but I will vote to scrap the position.”

Current Liverpool Mayor Joanna Anderson voted to give herself the boot

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PROPERTY MANAGEMENT

Central Government needs much better property data, says NAO

Longstanding problems such as poor data pose major risks to the management of central government property, says the National Audit Office (NAO).

Valued at £158 billion, central government property is a huge asset, categorised into 12 portfolios (such as health, defence and school etc), ten of which are led by a single department or arm’s-length body. The Government Property Agency (GPA) sets and implements a property strategy for the government’s office and warehouse portfolios.

The NAO report Managing central government property suggests that lack of good data is a major barrier. The Office of Government Property (OGP) has no comprehensive, real-time information on how central government property is distributed around the country, or indeed office occupancy following the COVID-19 pandemic. The GPA is piloting ways of measuring occupancy of the offices it manages, but has limited information. Delays in implementing InSite, a new database of central government property, have hindered the Cabinet Office’s attempts to collect more and better-quality data. The NAO recommends that the OGP should decisive action to implement InSite, and should discuss onboarding plans with departments that have not yet agreed to transfer the management of their offices to the GPA. The OGP should work with the Treasury to consider what long-term financial settlements are available to best incentivise initiatives with the potential for long-term savings. The Cabinet Office should also work with departments to prepare workforce plans for the next five years.

The NAO has also issued a guide about better government data in general. Improving government data: A guide for senior leaders aimed at encouraging decision-makers to realise the benefits of better use of data by helping them understand in more detail the core issues to be addressed. The NAO says this has hindered progress in the past. The guide has chapters oin embedding data standards, improving data quality, addressing legacy issues and enabling data-sharing.

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Social Housing providers need to ‘up their game’ says report

The cross-party Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Committee has found the condition of some social housing has deteriorated so badly that it is unfit for human habitation. The Regulation of Social Housing report highlights several issues relating to the supply, quality and regulation of social housing in England. Recognising that the social housing sector is under significant financial pressure, the report claims that one of the biggest problems is the power imbalance between social housing tenants and housing providers. In relation to complaint handling, the report recommends a strategy to improve public awareness of the ombudsman and how tenants can make complaints. Clive Betts, Labour MP for Sheffield South East and Chair of the Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Committee, said: “Too many social housing tenants are living in uninhabitable homes and experiencing appalling conditions and levels of disrepair, including serious damp and mould, with potential serious impacts on their mental and physical health.

“The poor complaint handling of some providers not only adds insult to injury but the resulting delays in resolving tenant complaints actively contributes to the levels of disrepair. Sproviders who discriminate and stigmatise “Providers need to up their game, treat tenants with dignity and respect, and put tenants at the centre of how they deliver housing services.”

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AWARDS

Manchester named Council of the Year at LGC Awards

Manchester City Council has been named Council of the Year at the Local Government Chronicle Awards. The council took the title for its “ambition, innovation and civic leadership even as it helped support the city through the Covid pandemic “

The judges said they were “impressed by the united approach of staff, partners and residents” and the way that the Council works with partner organisations and residents to shape services and projects and get results. They added: “This council is a generous partner that has transformed services with outcomes which buck the national trend.”

The last 12 months saw Cllr Bev Craig take up the leaders role in December 2021 bringing a smooth transition and continuing representation at a national level by chief executive Joanne Roney OBE, including in her role as President of SOLACE.

This year also saw the city’s children’s services rated as ‘good’ by Ofsted, putting them among the best in the North West of England and completing a turnaround from when they had been classed as ‘inadequate’ in 2014. The Council has ambitious plans to oversee the creation of 10,000 social and affordable homes over the next ten years.

READ MORE WATER TREATMENT

Legal duty planned for water firms to upgrade wastewater treatment works

The government has announced plans for a new legal duty on water companies in England to upgrade wastewater treatment works by 2030 in ‘nutrient neutrality’ areas to the highest achievable levels.

Nutrient pollution is an urgent problem for freshwater habitats and estuaries which provide a home to wetland birds, fish and insects. Increased levels of nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorus can speed up the growth of certain plants, disrupting natural processes and devastating wildlife.

Local Planning Authorities can only approve a plan or a project if they are certain it will have no negative effect on legally protected sites for nature. A new Nutrient Mitigation Scheme established by Natural England will allow local planning authorities to grant permission for new developments in areas with nutrient pollution issues. Natural England will accredit mitigation delivered through the scheme, enabling local planning authorities to grant planning permission for developments which have secured the necessary nutrient credits. This, according to the government, will ensure developers have a streamlined way to mitigate nutrient pollution, allowing planned building to continue and creating new habitats across the country. The scheme is expected to be open in the autmn.

Current Levelling Up Secretary Greg Clark said:”It is essential that new homes do not impair the quality of our rivers, streams and wetlands. These measures will ensure the development can take place, but only where there is practical action taken to protect our precious aquatic habitats.”

The new legal duty will be introduced via a Government amendment to the Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill.

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Suburbs vital to decarbonsation efforts, says Urban Transport Group

A new Urban Transport Group report highlights the fact the despite 80 per cent of Britons living in suburbs, these areas are often neglected when it comes to transport planning, drowned out on either side by the powerful voices of the city and the countryside. The report argues that there can be no decarbonisation of transport without specific measures to decarbonise transport in the suburbs.

The Good Life: The role of transport in shaping a new and sustainable era for suburbs presents four foundations of suburbs for a new era which recognise sthe different journey types from, to and within suburbs. It features a range of case studies highlighting how these foundations are already being supported.

The author of the report, Rebecca Fuller, said: “The pandemic has forced us to move away from the idea that suburban transport is mostly about moving commuters in and out of town and city centres. The suburbs feature many more journey types, made by a diverse group of people, and these journeys now need to be made more sustainably in the face of the climate crisis.

“Far more attention needs to be made to suburban transport planning now than it has in the past. This report sets out the transport foundations for a new era for suburbs, and whilst it presents some potential solutions, it also aims to trigger wider debate about the role transport can play and the specific transport solutions that will help suburbs to thrive in a sustainable and equitable way.”

The report urges policy makers to join the dots between transport and the decarbonisation of the suburbs more widely – from using community microgrids to power homes and transport to the integration of blue and green assets such rain gardens and green roofs, into transport infrastructure.

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A collaboration between local councils in Nottinghamshire will see members of the public encouraged to use buses through a gamified mobile app that offers discounted journeys. ‘Green Rewards’ gives users access to adult and group daily bus tickets at a 15 per cent discount. All users are entered into a draw to win a free monthly bus pass.

FIRE SAFETY

Housing association wins landmark case over defective cladding

South East housing association Hyde Housing has won a High Court ruling against contractor Mulalley & Co (Mulalley) over defective cladding installed between 2006 and 2008 on four residential towers in Gosport, Portsmouth. The ruling sets a crucial example that construction contractors can be held accountable for the remedial costs of removing dangerous cladding. It could help other housing associations hold construction contractors to account.

Inspections carried out shortly after the Grenfell Tower tragedy concluded that the design and use of the cladding systems installed by Mulalley were defective.

Hyde’s CEO Andy Hulme said: “It’s a welcome step forward in helping right the wrongs of the past, and will hopefully mean remedial works can start more swiftly and mean damages sought for remedial works are more likely to be settled out of court with less delay”

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SOCIAL CARE

Social Care sector faces tough year ahead, says Addas

The Association of Directors of Adults Social Services (Addas) has issued a stark warning that the year ahead will be the most challenging that the people needing and working in it have ever faced.

In its Spring Budget Survey 2022, the association finds that social care directors are finding an increasing number of people seeking support because of mental health issues, domestic abuse and safeguarding concerns. Directors are also receiving more requests for support because of pressures elsewhere in health and care. Almost seven in ten directors say that care providers in their area have closed, ceased trading or handed back contracts to local councils. Many more cannot deliver the increased care and support needed due to staffing shortfalls.

Cathie Williams, ADASS’s Chief Executive said: “Our health and social care services are in jeopardy. Without immediate and substantial help from the government, we face the most difficult winter we have ever experienced during which more people will miss out on vital care, others will wait longer for support and choice and quality will decline still further.

“Measures so far to ‘fix’ social care simply do not address the scale of current funding and workforce challenges and are crying out for a long-term, properly funded plan.”

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