The Cabinet Office, keen on making government machinery and decision-making more efficient, has declared war on consultation processes. It issued a statement saying that it is clearing out 鈥淲hitehall鈥檚 layers of unnecessary bureaucracy鈥�.
Meanwhile, on the same day, the Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government (MCHLG) launched two more consultation processes on the minutiae of regulations. It now has 15 鈥� fifteen 鈥� live consultation processes going on from a single department.
You couldn鈥檛 make it up, as a celebrated/notorious Sun columnist was wont to say.
Here鈥檚 what Cabinet Office minister Nick Thomas-Symonds said: 鈥淔or too long, the levers of power in Whitehall have been trapped under layers of outdated regulations and overlapping consultations that prioritise process over progress.聽 We are stripping away these layers to empower brilliant public servants to deliver change for working people, replacing an outsourcing of responsibility with accountability and decisive action.鈥�
Attorney general Richard Hermer added: 鈥淭here are too many examples where well-intentioned processes are slowing down decision-making at the heart of government. This delays real change and fails the public we serve. 聽We are getting on with rewiring the government and this review will speed up decision-making across Whitehall to help deliver a more agile, modern state.鈥�
Meanwhile, nearly nine years after the Grenfell Tower fire, Whitehall still wants to chat about it, presumably for fear of making things worse.
MCHLG鈥檚 latest consultations, launched yesterday wants views on tweaking the 聽building聽control regime聽for high-rise buildings 鈥� or 鈥榟igher-risk buildings鈥� as anything over 18 metres/seven storeys is now officially labelled.聽
The ministry wants to know what people think of its plans to redefine Category A to exclude work undertaken entirely within flats, unless it affects wider building safety systems, and to exclude聽small-scale,聽low-complexity聽works in communal areas from Category A, allowing them to be managed via the easier Category B pathway.
This consultation runs for nine weeks, until 28th May, and can be found .
Another new consultation from the Housing Ministry wants to know our views on the proposed mandatory certification for fire risk assessors. At present, building owners and landlords can do their own fire risk assessments. The government wants to restrict this activity to people who have the right badge.
This one runs for 12 weeks, until 18th June, and can be found聽
Got a story? Email news@theconstructionindex.co.uk
