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Who’s who at MHCLG
It was rebranded last year to give housing a more central role, but which civil servants should sector leaders get to know at the MHCLG? Rhiannon Curry has the low-down
The corridors of Whitehall are staffed by myriad civil servants working behind ministers in order to effect policy changes and ensure that the country runs as smoothly as possible.
The government’s work on housing takes place mainly within the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG), where staff cover issues ranging from integrating communities to building safety.
The department was originally formed in July 2001 as part of the Cabinet Office. At that time it was known as the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, a post held by John Prescott.
It became a separate department in May 2002 after absorbing the local government and regions portfolios from the defunct Department for Transport, Local Government and the Regions.
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Then during a reshuffle in Tony Blair’s government in May 2006, it was rebranded, with Ruth Kelly succeeding David Miliband to become the first secretary of state for communities and local government at the new Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG).
It was renamed once more by Theresa May in January last year, becoming MHCLG.
According to its website, the two major pillars of the department’s work are “driving up housing supply” and “increasing homeownership” but homelessness, local government finance and planning also fall under its remit.
The department works with 13 agencies and public bodies to carry out its duties. These include: the Planning Inspectorate, Homes England, the Housing Ombudsman and the Regulator of Social Housing.
Its recent consultations have been on policy areas as diverse as protecting the pensions of local government employees, a new Clean Air Strategy and preserving the free use of public parks. It collects data on housebuilding, the number of homeless people in the UK and the type of housing people live in.
While the department’s remit is well understood, what is not always as well known are the individuals involved and what powers they have.
This is Inside Housing’s handy rundown of the key movers and shakers when it comes to the housing sector in Whitehall.
THE PROFILES
Melanie Dawes, permanent secretary
Responsibilities: head of department
Melanie Dawes is the most senior civil servant at MHCLG’s Marsham Street headquarters and took up the post of permanent secretary in March 2015, taking over from previous incumbent Sir Bob Kerslake. Ms Dawes, a graduate of the University of Oxford, previously worked at HM Treasury, HM Revenue and Customs, and the Cabinet Office.
According to government figures, when she took up her post at the helm of MHCLG, Ms Dawes’ salary was between £160,000 and £164,999, making her one of the 328 most highly paid people in the British public sector at that time.
Jeremy Pocklington, director general
Responsibilities: head of housing and building safety division
Jeremy Pocklington began his role as a director general in MHCLG in August last year, having held a similar post at the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS) for the previous 18 months. When he moved to MHCLG he said that the role would be an “exciting challenge” as the government looked to deliver on its pledge to increase housebuilding levels to 300,000 a year by the mid-2020s.
Mr Pocklington leads the team which looks after all elements of the housing market and is responsible for putting government policy on housing into action.
Jo Farrar, director general
Responsibilities: local government and public services
A former chief executive of Bath and North East Somerset Council, Ms Farrar heads MHCLG’s local government and public services work having joined the department in August 2016. At the end of last year she faced questions at a select committee hearing about the sustainability of local government finance after years of cost-cutting. One of her responsibilities is ensuring local services continue to be funded.
Simon Ridley, director general
Responsibilities: decentralisation and local growth
Mr Ridley, a former chief executive of the Planning Inspectorate, took up his current role in 2015. His team looks after the growth of cities, planning and housing delivery, and he is tasked with making sure that decentralisation leads to meaningful economic growth across the UK. Part of his remit is also implementing government policy on Section 106 planning obligations, the Community Infrastructure Levy and viability assessments.
Isobel Stephen, director
Responsibilities: housing supply
Ms Stephen has worked in the civil service for 20 years but she has been in her current role at MHCLG since early 2015.
She has responsibility for strategy, design of programmes and relationships with the developer sector, mortgage lenders and institutional investors. She also works closely with Homes England.
Prior to moving to MHCLG she worked at the Department for Work and Pensions, the Department of Health, Number 10 and running JobCentre Plus offices.
Unknown director
Responsibilities: social housing
This role had been held by Sally Randall until December, when she left the department to take up a new role at the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs. Ms Randall had responsibilities spanning the social housing sector, and in late 2017 sat on panels where ministers met tenants after the Grenfell Tower fire.
In February last year she told a National Housing Federation conference that housing was the number one domestic priority at Westminster, and offered to visit housing associations to hear what their boards had to say. Her replacement is yet to be announced.
John Hall, acting director
Responsibilities: homelessness and renting
Mr Hall, a former music journalist who joined the civil service in 2005, looks after the department’s activities on homelessness and renting across tenures.
He spent a number of years at the Ministry of Justice before joining MHCLG just over two years ago, first specialising in housing support, before stepping into his current role.
He has spent much of his time recently on leasehold reform after problems with the tenure came to light.
Andrew McNeill, Andrew Pattison and Neil O’Connor, directors
Responsibilities: building safety programme
Mr McNeill, Mr Pattison and Mr O’Connor work on the government’s response to the Grenfell Tower fire and changes that could be made to building safety regulations as a result of lessons learned from the disaster. The building safety programme was established in 2017 and is intended to improve conditions in UK tower blocks.
Mr McNeill had been part of the team responsible for the delivery of the London Olympics in 2012 and was drafted in to lead the building safety programme when it was set up.
Mr Pattison has a particular focus on changes to building regulations, and attends official government meetings which discuss issues including cladding, as well as working with housing developers to build safer buildings.
Mr O’Connor has liaised with local council representatives to help them identify buildings with potentially dangerous cladding and clarify what their legal position is. In his previous role as director of fire and resilience for MHCLG, he worked on the government’s response to the Lakanal House fire.
Jillian Kay, director
Responsibilities: Grenfell recovery and resilience
Ms Kay works to co-ordinate the government’s support for the communities affected by the Grenfell Tower fire. She manages around 100 people covering policy on the Grenfell Tower recovery operation, including a victims support unit and rehousing team, MHCLG’s role in the public enquiry and looking at how the government responds to emergencies.
Ms Kay has spent much of her career working for the Ministry of Justice, including more than three years as chief executive of the Judicial Office, which provides practical support to the judiciary in England and Wales. She has a law degree from the University of Glasgow.
Louise Morgan, director
Responsibilities: housing delivery
Ms Morgan had been the principal private secretary to both Sajid Javid and James Brokenshire in their role as secretary of state, but moved to the housing delivery role in August last year. Her job includes monitoring the number of homes built in the UK, and ensuring that the planning system works in order to encourage development.
She is also looking after the new housing delivery test, which sets out a standard approach to measuring how well the delivery of homes is going, and creates a series of consequences for councils for failing the test.
Steve Quartermain, director
Responsibilities: chief planner
A former president of the Planning Officers’ Society and one of the main architects of the original National Planning Policy Framework, which was published in March 2012, Mr Quartermain has been the person in charge of seeing that the directives are functioning as they should.
He has also been tasked with monitoring whether councils have put a local plan in place or not and revising the policy, which was reissued last year. He is a long-standing member of the MHCLG team, having been in post since 2008.
