16 October 2008
By Paul Dicken
The permanent secretary at the Department for Communities and Local Government has defended the department's performance despite its failure to meet most of its Public Service Agreement targets.
Speaking to MPs on the communities and local government select committee on October 13, Peter Housden said the rules within each PSA had been challenging and a closer look showed performance was not as bad as it seemed.
'If you look at our targets across the piece, 65% of those sub-targets were met, on course or ahead, so pretty good. You can actually see some very substantial achievements,' he said.
He said a good example of the strict rules within PSAs was that a target on ministerial casework required 100% of cases to be completed within 16 weeks. Out of 530 cases, one was not completed within the time frame – meaning the target was not met.
Out of the nine PSAs from the 2004 Spending Review, the department was on course to meet only the housing supply and local government targets, according to its annual report.
DCLG director general of housing and planning Richard McCarthy also gave evidence to the committee on the department's annual report.
He said the targets to create 3 million homes by 2020 and 2 million by 2016 were now 'extremely challenging' as a result of the economic conditions.
He said: 'We will be discussing with ministers if and when it's the right time to review those gross targets. We are facing pressure and challenges in the marketplace which are unprecedented, which flow directly from a credit squeeze.'
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