NEWS
Commercial-to-residential planning rules to be relaxed
The Government is consulting on plans to grant permitted develop- ment rights to changes from com- mercial to residential, so no plan- ning permission will be required.
Use changes from B1 (offices, R&D premises and light industry) to C3 (homes) will not need permission under the proposals.
The consultation document ex- plains: “Removing the burden and costs associated with such appli- cations and establishing the prin- ciple that change of use between these classes is permitted should encourage developers to bring for- ward more proposals for housing.”
A remote town in the Yorkshire Dales has won government praise after its residents took proactive action to run their own community services.
People living in Hawes, in the mid- dle of the Dales and miles from any major town, are saving them- selves a 70-mile round trip by run- ning council services in their own one-stop community offices.
Residents formed a committee, conducted a survey and then got advice from their council on how to set up their own library with computer facilities, a helpdesk to pay council tax bills and a facility to talk directly to the police.
and a community minibus service based here, as well as a number of community organisations that are using us as their front desk.”
Independent councillor John Blackie said: “It started with Richmondshire District Council who used to bring an officer up one day a week, and we thought perhaps we could expand that to a five day a week offer. What we have now is the District Council of Richmondshire, the library of North Yorkshire County Council and a community centre. We have a po- lice station for Upper Wensleydale,
The Department for Communities and Local Government said: “The action taken by Hawes volun- teers illustrates the Government’s Localism Bill in action - ending the hoarding of power within central government and top-down control of communities by allowing local people to run their lives. By de- centralising power from Whitehall and giving it to communities like Hawes, residents can decide how best their services should be run, where they should be based and even what services they need.”
A Government-commissioned review of public sector pay has recommended pay cuts for man- agers who miss performance tar- gets.
Economist and commentator Will Hutton said his “earn-back” scheme would mean, effectively, wage cuts of up to 20% for those who under-perform across the civil service and local govern- ment.
Under the proposed rules, senior public sector staff would have at least 10% of their basic salary withheld each year. The money would only be paid if annual per- formance targets were met.
Hutton said: “This is going to af- fect tens of thousands of man- agers and leaders in the public sector. The public has a right to know that pay is deserved, fair, under control and designed to drive improving public sector per- formance, and that there are no rewards for failure.”
The police, BBC, Armed Forces and judiciary would not be affect- ed by the Fair Pay Review.
Hutton recommended against a proposed ‘cap’ that would have seen executive pay limited to 20 times that of their lowest-paid employee.
4 | public sector executive Mar/Apr 11
Will Hutton
authority pay bill, while the ratio of average top pay to average lowest pay in local government is nine-to-one. We believe that is a proportionate approach to pay increments in a sector where chief executives are responsible for huge organisations which de- liver vital services to every family in Britain.”
He explained: “Large and com- plex organisations might have lower pay at the bottom than simpler ones – so you could end up with the top executive in the bigger organisation earning less than his peer running a smaller one. Every manager would be af- fected, and the bigger organisa- tion unfairly penalised. Arbitrary caps make no sense.”
Chancellor George Osborne will give the report “careful consid- eration”, he said, while Local Government Employers wel- comed the “considered and bal- anced” review.
LGE managing director Jan Parkinson said many of the re- view’s recommendations simply reinforce existing council prac- tice.
She said: “We absolutely endorse the emphasis on transparency and democratic accountability and support calls for fair and ac- curate comparisons to be made of the relative remuneration of dif- ferent roles in the public sector.
“Senior council salaries are al- ready public on local authority websites and decisions on how much to pay senior staff are made by politically proportionate com- mittees within councils. In addi- tion, workers in local government are subject to regular job evalu- ation to ensure they are fulfilling their duties and delivering value for money for residents.
“It is important to keep the level of senior council salaries in per- spective. Senior staff pay makes up around 2.5% of the total local
Parkinson advised that local au- thorities had budgets of up to £1bn a year and needed to at- tract people capable of running such vast organisations, adding: “We would want to avoid the in- troduction of a blanket approach to pay and incentives across the entire public sector. There is no one-size-fits-all solution and we believe democratically elected local authorities should retain the flexibility to set remuneration and performance incentives which are appropriate to them.
“We believe the introduction of a senior salary code of practice for the sector will help better explain the decision making process to taxpayers. The call on the Senior Salaries Review Body to make definitive comparisons between private and public sector pay will also help challenge the common misconception that senior coun- cil salaries are in the same hemi- sphere as those in private com- panies of a similar size.”
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