In a letter seen by Housing Today, government appointee Tony Allen said the local authority's recovery plan, adopted last Thursday, needs to be rethought. The letter was sent to all Hull councillors and the council's acting chief executive Jan Didrichsen.
"I am not yet satisfied that this [plan] is fit for the purpose or ready to be the primary vehicle for the council to drive its own recovery. It needs to be quickly improved," he said.
The comments raised the spectre of a full takeover by central government. Allen did not recommend this course in his letter, but he did make repeated calls for "rapid improvement".
He expects the council to remain under ODPM direction for at least a further year.
Hull was put under partial supervision in November after its continued failure to deal with surplus housing stock and poor leadership (HT 7 November 2003, page 9).
Allen was appointed last November to help transform the council following damning Audit Commission inspections in 2002 and 2003.
His views are taken into account by local government minister Nick Raynsford and a separate government monitoring board that decides if the council should stay supervised. The board will next meet in mid-July.
Opposition councillors say the plan sets few measurable targets. In housing policy, it sets a target of May 2004 for a "baseline position" to be established to determine the scale of decent homes investment – a deadline the council has already missed by a month.
Carl Minns, deputy leader of the opposing Liberal Democrat group at the council, said: "This so-called recovery plan is the worst document I've seen put before the council.
It's bland and sets no reasonable targets. It could lead to more intervention."
Council chief executive Didrichsen said: "We are aware it needs beefing up, it needs sharper, more measurable targets. We can add these to the document at a later date by circulating more specific targets."
Source
Housing Today
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