Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government
The Secretary of State for Housing and Local Government, or informally Communities Secretary is a Cabinet position heading the UK's Ministry of Housing and Local Government known as the Department for Communities and Local Government from 2006 to 2018. This department was created in 2006 by British prime minister Tony Blair to replace the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister; the Secretary of State took over the responsibilities of the Minister of State for Communities and Local Government. This post, within the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, was created in 2005, on the transfer of several of the functions of the Deputy Prime Minister, John Prescott; as well as general responsibilities within the department's remit, the Secretary of State has the power to determine "called in" planning applications and "recovered" appeals in England
Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government
The Ministry of Housing and Local Government is the UK Government department for housing and local government in England. It was established in May 2006 and is the successor to the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, established in 2001, its headquarters is located at 2 Marsham Street in London, occupation of which it shares with the Home Office. It was renamed to add Housing to its title and changed to a ministry in January 2018. There are corresponding departments in the Scottish Government, the Welsh Government and the Northern Ireland Executive, responsible for communities and local government in their respective jurisdictions; the MHCLG's ministers are as follows: The Permanent Secretary is Melanie Dawes who took up her post on 1 March 2015. Henry Smith was appointed Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government on 26 May 2015. MHCLG was formed in July 2001 as part of the Cabinet Office with the title Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, headed by the Deputy Prime Minister, John Prescott.
In May 2002 the ODPM became a separate department after absorbing the local government and regions portfolios from the defunct Department for Transport, Local Government and the Regions. The ODPM was criticised in some quarters for adding little value and the Environmental Audit Committee had reported negatively on the department in the past. During the 5 May 2006 reshuffle of Tony Blair's government, it was renamed and Ruth Kelly succeeded David Miliband to become the first Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government at the Department for Communities and Local Government. In January 2018, as part of Theresa May’s Cabinet Reshuffle, the department was renamed the Ministry of Housing and Local Government; the Ministry is responsible for UK Government policy in the following areas in England: building regulations community cohesion decentralisation fire services and community resilience housing local government planning race equality the Thames Gateway urban regenerationOn its creation it assumed the community policy function of the Home Office.
Ministers have since established the Commission on Integration and Cohesion, the now separate Government Equalities Office, now part of the Department for Education. Planning Inspectorate Queen Elizabeth II Conference CentreThe department was responsible for two other agencies. On 18 July 2011 Ordnance Survey was transferred to the Department for Business and Skills and on 28 February 2013 the Fire Service College was sold to Capita. In January 2007, Ruth Kelly announced proposals to bring together the delivery functions of the Housing Corporation, English Partnerships and parts of the Department for Housing and Local Government to form a new unified housing and regeneration agency, the Homes and Communities Agency. Announced as Communities England, it became operational in December 2008; this includes the Academy for Sustainable Communities. 2008 was the year that the department along with the Local Government Association produced the National Improvement and Efficiency Strategy which led to the creation of nine Regional Improvement and Efficiency Partnerships with devolved funding of £185m to drive sector-led improvement for councils.
Its main counterparts in the devolved nations of the UK are as follows. Scotland Communities Directorates Learning and Justice DirectoratesNorthern Ireland Office of the First Minister and deputy First Minister Department of the Environment Department of Finance and Personnel Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safety Department for Social Development Wales Welsh Government Department for Local Government and Public Services Budget of the United Kingdom Council house Energy efficiency in British housing Flag protocol Homes and Communities Agency Local Resilience Forum English Partnerships Housing Corporation Housing estate Social Exclusion Task Force Local Government Association Regional Improvement and Efficiency Partnership Official website Local Government Channel Communities UK YouTube channel
Public service
Public service is a service, provided by government to people living within its jurisdiction, either directly or by financing provision of services. The term is associated with a social consensus that certain services should be available to all, regardless of income, physical ability or mental acuity. Where public services are neither publicly provided nor publicly financed, for social and political reasons they are subject to regulation going beyond that applying to most economic sectors. Public policy when made in the public's interest and motivations can provide public services. Public service is a course that can be studied at a college or university. Examples of public services are the fire brigade, air force, paramedics. Public services are associated with fundamental human rights; the Volunteer Fire Dept. and Ambulance Corps. Are institutions with the mission of servicing the community. A service want. Here, service ranges from a doctor curing an illness, to a food pantry. In modern developed countries, the term "public services" includes: In modern democracies, public service is performed by employees known as civil servants who are hired by elected officials.
Government agencies are not profit-oriented and their employees are motivated differently. Studies of their work have found contrasting results including both higher levels of effort and fewer hours of work. A survey in the UK found that private sector hiring managers do not credit government experience as much as private sector experience. Public workers tend to make less in wages when adjusting for education, although that difference is reduced when benefits and hours are included. Public workers have other intangible benefits such as increased job security. A public service may sometimes have the characteristics of a public good, but most are services which may be under-provided by the market. In most cases public services are services, i.e. they do not involve manufacturing of goods. They may be provided by local or national monopolies in sectors which are natural monopolies, they may involve outputs that are hard to attribute to specific individual effort or hard to measure in terms of key characteristics such as quality.
They require high levels of training and education. They may attract people with a public service ethos who wish to give something to the wider public or community through their work. Governing bodies have long provided core public services; the tradition of keeping citizens secure through organized military defence dates to at least four thousand years ago. Maintaining order through local delegated authority originated at least as early as the Warring States period in ancient China with the institution of xian under the control of a centrally-appointed prefect. Historical evidence of state provision of dispute resolution through a legal/justice system goes back at least as far as ancient Egypt. A primary public service in ancient history involved ensuring the general favor of the gods through a theologically and ceremonially correct state religion; the widespread provision of public utilities as public services in developed countries began in the late nineteenth century with the municipal development of gas and water services.
Governments began to provide other services such as electricity and healthcare. In most developed countries local or national governments continue to provide such services, the biggest exceptions being the U. S. and the UK, where private provision is arguably proportionally more significant. Nonetheless, such provided public services are strongly regulated, for example by Public Utility Commissions. In developing countries public services tend to be much less well developed. For example, water services might only be available to the wealthy middle class. For political reasons the service is subsidized, which reduces the finance available for expansion to poorer communities. Nationalization took off following the World Wars of the first half of the twentieth century. Across Europe, because of the extreme demands on industries and the economy, central planning was required to make production maximally efficient. Many public services electricity and public transport are products of this era. Following the Second World War, many countries began to implement universal health care and expanded education under the funding and guidance of the state.
There are several ways to privatize public services. A free-market corporation may be established and sold to private investors, relinquishing government control altogether, thus it becomes a private service. Another option, used in the Nordic countries, is to establish a corporation, but keep ownership or voting power in the hands of the government. For example, the Finnish state owned 49% of Kemira until 2007, the rest being owned by private investors. A 49% share did not make it a "government enterprise", but it meant that all other investors together would have to oppose the state's opinion in order to overturn the state's decisions in the shareholder's meeting. Regulated corporation can acquire permits on the agreement that they fulfill certain public service duties; when a private corporation runs a natural monopoly the corporation is heavily regulated, to prevent abuse of monopoly power. Lastly, the government can buy the service on the free market. In many countries, medication is provided in this manner: the gov
