South Norfolk MP Richard Bacon has said that the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) is not taken seriously in Whitehall and needs to get its act together if it is to restore confidence in its handling of a multi-million pound regeneration project, as a new report finds multiple failings with the government’s flagship Thames Gateway scheme.

Mr Bacon was speaking as the Commons public accounts committee published its report into the Thames Gateway scheme.  The scheme aims to build 160,000 new homes and create 180,000 new jobs on the area between Canary Wharf in London and the mouth of the River Thames by 2016. 

However, the report finds overall management of the programme has been weak and that, despite spending £673 million, DCLG has not yet established the means by which it will control the programme, including setting a budget.  DCLG estimates it has spent £7 billion of taxpayers’ money in the South East, but does not know how much of this spending forms part of the Thames Gateway programme or how much the regeneration of the Thames Gateway area will cost the taxpayer. 

Local partners and central government officials involved in the programme told the National Audit Office that they did not consider the scheme well coordinated or joined-up across Whitehall departments.  They also felt DCLG did not have the influence within Whitehall to solve such problems. 

Mr Bacon said today: “Describing the management of this programme as ‘weak’ has to be the understatement of the year.  It defies belief that the Department for Communities and Local Government blew over half a billion pounds of taxpayers’ money before it had even set a budget, let alone established how it would control the programme”.

“DCLG appears to be the runt of the Whitehall litter, unable to make its squeals heard above bigger and stronger departments who simply do not take DCLG seriously.  The Department needs to get its act together if it is to restore confidence in its handling of the Thames Gateway scheme, starting with setting a proper budget”.

15 November 2007

See also:
PAC REPORT: The Thames Gateway

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