Asked by: Simon Kirby (Conservative - Brighton, Kemptown)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what steps he is taking to reduce water (a) usage and (b) bills in his Department; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Kris Hopkins
The Department for Communities and Local Government has made significant reductions to both its water usage and associated bills.
Total water use has been reduced by 50% since 2009-10, and the number of its offices falling within good and best practice office water benchmarks has been increased from 28% to 73% during the same period.
These improvements have primarily been achieved by installing efficiency devices such as tap aerators, flow control valves, through leak reduction work, and by encouraging staff and facilities managers to adopt more water efficient behaviours.
In taking this action, the Department has reduced its annual water bill by £13,000 since 2009-10, and continues to work towards identifying even greater efficiencies.
Asked by: Simon Kirby (Conservative - Brighton, Kemptown)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what the total private finance initiative liabilities of his Department are for the next 20 years; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Kris Hopkins
The Department does not have any PFI projects of its own but does provide support to local authority PFI projects through the revenue support grant system.
The Coalition Government has strongly emphasised securing value for money from PFI including savings through its Operational Savings Programme. This Department has achieved programme savings of £497 million since 2010 from projects during procurement and savings from operational PFI projects of £33 million.
Details of local authority sponsored PFI projects can be found on the government website at the following link: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/private-finance-initiative-projects=2013-summary-data.
This currently provides information as at 31st March 2013 but will be updated shortly with data as at 31st March 2014.
Asked by: Simon Kirby (Conservative - Brighton, Kemptown)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, how many private finance initiative projects his Department contracted for in each year from 1997 to 2010.
Answered by Kris Hopkins
The Department for Communities and Local Government itself did not contract for any private finance initiative projects between 1997 and 2010. The Department did sponsor local authority PFI projects over this period. Details of Department sponsored local authority PFi projects can be found on the government website at the following link:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/private-finance-initiative-projects-2013-summary-data.
The data can be filtered by procuring authority and then by date of financial close in order to determine how many PFI projects were supported by the Department in a specific year. This information is provided by Departments and published by Treasury each year. The current data is at 31 March 2013 but will be updated with data as at 31 March 2014 shortly.
Asked by: Simon Kirby (Conservative - Brighton, Kemptown)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what steps he is taking to reduce energy costs in his Department; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Kris Hopkins
The Department for Communities and Local Government has already made excellent progress in reducing its energy costs by £1.1 million per annum to 2013-14 since 2009-10, despite the cost of energy increasing during the same period.
This has been achieved primarily through low and no cost measures energy efficiency measures, a reduction in size of the Department’s estate and a small number of capital investments. This has contributed to a reduction in associated greenhouse gas emissions of 51% during the same period.
Plans to reduce energy costs further include continuing to refine Building (Energy) Management System programmes; conduct annual audits of all key plant and equipment to identify cost-effective options for asset replacement and enhancement; run staff awareness campaigns; monitor and target unexpected building energy profiles through automated meter reading devices across the estate; and estate rationalisation and co-location.
In addition, the Department purchases its energy through the Crown Commercial Service frameworks which are let following extensive market competition and EU-wide tender processes to guarantee the best prices for energy. The bulk of central Government energy is aggregated under the Crown Commercial Service frameworks, which enable their Energy Team to engage directly with the energy markets to achieve best value and price for the taxpayer.
Asked by: Simon Kirby (Conservative - Brighton, Kemptown)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, if he will estimate the number of local authorities that have held referendums on increasing council tax above the threshold set by his Department.
Answered by Kris Hopkins
No local authorities have so far held a council tax referendum since the provisions were introduced through the Localism Act 2011.Asked by: Simon Kirby (Conservative - Brighton, Kemptown)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what estimate he has made of the cost to local authorities of holding council tax referendums.
Answered by Kris Hopkins
Further to the passage of the Localism Act, the Government published an impact assessment on the council tax referendums policy. A copy has been placed in the Library of the House.
Notwithstanding, the costs will be significantly lower if a referendum is held at the same time as another election. Given a general election will be held in May 2015, the marginal cost to the public purse of holding a referendum next year alongside this would be minimal, other than the small costs of printing and counting the extra ballot papers.
Asked by: Simon Kirby (Conservative - Brighton, Kemptown)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, whether he has any plans to increase the number of replies within his Department's working day standard; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Kris Hopkins
I refer my hon. Friend to the answer given by the Minister for the Cabinet Office, Paymaster General (Francis Maude) on 2 September, Official Report, Column 230W.
DCLG aim to respond to all correspondence within 10 working days.
Asked by: Simon Kirby (Conservative - Brighton, Kemptown)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, if he will review his departmental estate in order to reduce costs; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Kris Hopkins
Since 2010, the Department has had considerable success in reducing the cost of its wider estate through the rationalisation of retained office space and targeted building disposals. This has seen the Department surrender six leasehold office properties through a combination of lease breaks and expiries, generating net savings in the period of around £7 million per annum. The Department has also successfully sub-let surplus space across its leasehold office estate during the same period, reducing the overall property costs by around £6.5 million per annum.
Building on this success, in 2013-14, we have secured further savings of £4.6 million by subletting further space in Eland House in London ahead of vacating the building in September 2014. The move from Eland House to 2 Marsham Street will reduce my department’s running costs by £9 million a year from 2015-16. Overall, these changes will save taxpayers a total of £220 million over the lifetime of the building’s lease commitments.
This illustrates the scope for local government and, indeed, the public sector as a whole to make sensible savings through better property management.
In June 2013, supporting the Prime Minister’s commitment to support the development of small and medium enterprises, the Department agreed terms with business incubator providers to take vacant space at 2 Rivergate House in Bristol and Bridge House, Guildford. This is an important part of the Government’s drive to assist the start-up and small and medium enterprises business and we are also working with the Government Property Unit on potential Government Space for Growth opportunities in other properties held by DCLG.
Asked by: Simon Kirby (Conservative - Brighton, Kemptown)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what steps he is taking to ensure that local authorities complete and publish local development plans as soon as possible; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Brandon Lewis
The Localism Act enabled the abolition of the Labour Government’s top-down Regional Strategies and strengthened the role of Local Plans (complemented by neighbourhood planning) in determining where new development should and should not go. However, a locally-led planning system needs councils to have up-to-date plans in place, and requires elected councillors to take decisions, sometimes challenging, in consultation with local residents.
We have provided support for all local authorities in plan-making, both directly and in conjunction with the Planning Inspectorate and Planning Advisory Service. This includes engagement from expert officials to support authorities in resolving challenging issues and preparing effectively for examination, and by providing direct support on technical matters via the Planning Advisory Service.
The National Planning Policy Framework strongly encourages all areas to get Local Plans in place quickly as the best way of determining what development is appropriate and where; councils with a Local Plan are in a strong position to stop unwanted speculative development.
Plan production has increased significantly in the last few years: 79% of local authorities have now published a Local Plan. To place this in context, six years after the Labour Government's 2004 Planning Act, by May 2010, only one in six local planning authorities had an adopted Core Strategy.
Asked by: Simon Kirby (Conservative - Brighton, Kemptown)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what recent estimate he has made of the number of council-owned homes in England which are affected by damp; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Brandon Lewis
According to the English Housing Survey, in 2012 there were around 116,000 (7%) local authority homes affected by damp, down from 214,000 (12%) in 2009. The Department for Communities and Local Government have allocated £2.26 billion of decent homes funding for 2011-16 to further reduce this number.