Page:Hansard (UK) - Vol 566 No. 40 August 29th 2013.pdf/92

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Nick Boles: Quarterly statistics on planning applications can be found online at:

Quarterly statistics on house building are online at:

Live tables on affordable housing supply, published by year, are online at:

Figures for the number of enactment of planning permissions for new homes over the last three years are not centrally held.

My Department does hold some information from Glenigan on sites with 10 or more units. They estimate that as of June 2013 there were an estimated 495,700 units with planning permission. Of these, 234,800 had already started on site, 189,900 were progressing towards a start, 60,500 were classed as on hold or shelved and 10,500 were being sold or information was not available. As I noted in my answer of 9 July 2013, Official Report, column 189W, this illustrates there is little evidence of land banking or land hoarding in practice. I also refer the hon. Member to that answer on what steps we are taking to help kick start stalled sites.

Brandon Lewis: Latest published data show that at 31 March 2012 non-schools revenue reserves were £16.4 billion in England. The Department does not collect data on the level of non-schools revenue reserves for Wales.

In December, we published the best practice document, ‘50 ways to save’, which recommended to councils:

Brandon Lewis: Ministers are currently reviewing what further steps can be taken to support recognition and awareness of England’s traditional counties, including encouraging appropriate local signage.

Nick Boles: The Government is fully committed to supporting town centres. Our National Planning Policy Framework sets out clearly that local councils should recognise town centres as the hearts of their communities and pursue policies to support their viability and vitality. Specifically, it requires that local planning authorities apply a sequential and impact test to planning applications for certain uses, such as retail, leisure and office, that are not in an existing centre and are not in accordance with an up-to-date local plan. Where an application fails to satisfy the sequential test or is likely to have significant adverse impact it should be refused.

Our policy also supports the retention and re-introduction of markets in town centres, makes clear that local approaches to parking should support town centres, and that the needs of retail, leisure and other main town centre uses should be met in full. We have taken action to help rejuvenate high streets by backing communities across the country with a multi-million pound package of support, providing over £80 million in loans for start-up companies and doubling small business rate relief to help small entrepreneurs. Since the publication of the Portas Review into the future of our high streets last summer, we have established 27 Portas Pilots and 333 Town Teams to test different approaches to revitalising the high street, while the 500 neighbourhood plans being developed give local communities the opportunity to support their town’s high streets.

Brandon Lewis: We have interpreted recruitment agency fees to mean companies (third party suppliers) that we engage in recruiting permanent staff for the Department. We have spent £8,312 (excluding VAT) on recruitment agency fees in the last 12 months to July 2013.

To place this in context, our departmental audited annual accounts for the core Department show that total staff costs fell from £216 million in 2009-10 to £99 million in 2012-13, a reduction of 54% in cash terms, or a saving of £117,000,000 a year. The number of staff has been reduced from 3,781 full-time equivalent in 2009-10 to 1,681 in 2012-13, a reduction of 56%.

We have not made any such outplacement agencies fees in the last 12 months.

It would involve disproportionate cost to identify spend specifically on staff training in each of the last 12 months as this information is not readily available, as this is recorded within a wider development budget category.