22 February 2008
The new Homes and Communities Agency could be up and running by the end of the year, its chief executive designate said this week. Sir Bob Kerslake said he would like to bring forward the formal start-up date from April 2009.
The new agency brings together the work of the Housing Corporation and English Partnerships, and is charged with ensuring 3 million new homes are built in England by 2020.
'We haven't determined exactly [how far forward] yet but potentially somewhere around November or December: obviously subject to the Housing and Regeneration Bill and its timing and how fast that goes through,' Kerslake told MPs on February 18.
Giving evidence to the Commons' communities and local government select committee, Kerslake said a key challenge would be to create an agency that was more than the sum of its parts.
'It needs to have its own culture. It needs to bring something that the existing agencies don't, if you like – to add more to the mix.
'It needs to make absolutely the best use of the public resources it has,' he said.
He added that the HCA also needed to excel at working in collaborative partnership, particularly with local government.
He told the committee: '[Local government] has its own strong view about its place and what it's trying to achieve and how it should achieve it, and you work much better if you go with the grain of local intentions. That isn't to say you don't have a strong conversation about how it will happen.'
PFfeb2008
