Professor Michelle Norris:

Dr. Norton will lead off on the planning questions. In respect of the rest of the questions, with regard to strengthening the evidence base for policy, that needs to be done immediately. I acknowledge that academics always say "strengthen the evidence base" but in this case we found that it was very difficult to get to the bottom of this, not the overall scale of accommodation need for Travellers which, as the Deputy mentioned, is now an emergency situation, but particularly preferences for Traveller-specific accommodation, that is, halting sites, group housing schemes and standard social housing or social housing and other private forms of housing. Those recommendations could be implemented immediately and that would strengthen the situation.

In terms of the funding, if the Deputy looks at the analysis of spending we put forward in the report he will see that the problem we face is that, overall among the local authorities, there is consistent failure to draw down all the funding allocated. However, if we look at it in more detail we see that the problem is that the local authorities responsible for areas where the Traveller population is growing most and that have the highest proportion of funding allocated are drawing down the least amount. Parts of the country where the population is growing are spending the least on additional Traveller accommodation. That is a real blockage. Other areas are spending more than their allocation. That needs to be addressed.

We also know from the report commissioned by the Housing Agency referred to by the Deputy that a huge proportion of the spending is on refurbishment rather than new delivery, particularly of Traveller-specific accommodation. Quite a proportion of Traveller-specific accommodation is being refurbished in the group housing scheme. There is no additional supply coming on-stream. That is another area we need to strengthen to see what exactly is being provided. I refer to the monitoring side of that.

In terms of the timeline for implementation, we identified short-term, medium-term and long-term measures. We agreed that homelessness among Travellers in particular and also the number of households camping on the roadside, which is approximately 600, is at emergency level so we are keen to see the recommendations implemented immediately or as quickly as possible.

On the recommendation about the strategic policy committees, SPCs, we noticed when we reviewed the Housing (Traveller Accommodation) Act 1998 that the Act itself is progressive legislation. It was comprehensive and introduced on foot of the Task Force of the Travelling Community, which was very comprehensive. One of the issues that has blocked its implementation is that there has been a range of other developments relating to planning law in the local government sector that superseded the arrangements in the 1998 Act. One of them, for instance, is the establishment of SPCs. Local Traveller accommodation consultative committees were set up under the 1998 Act. They have only advisory status. Local government was then reformed and SPCs were set up with responsibility for the local authorities' different functions. The Traveller consultative committees just report to an SPC. They are outside the current system, so to speak, and we felt that giving them the status of an SPC would bring them into the core of the local government system and ensure their recommendations were acted upon.

We also highlighted some problems in the operation of the committees, particularly in respect of supporting the Traveller community representatives.

On the national body, the entire report focused on the blockages to implementation of the Traveller accommodation legislation. A key blockage is that nobody is enforcing implementation at the central level. No one is monitoring effectively what is being done. There is some monitoring but in our view it is not effective monitoring. In respect of the funding not being drawn down and the accommodation not being provided, no one is monitoring that and enforcing implementation. We felt that the authority would have this role in terms of reviewing the evidence base, ensuring it is strengthened, monitoring what is being done at local authority level and, if necessary, referring local authorities to the national planning regulator to ensure their implementation can be enforced. The planning recommendations in the report reflect the fact that local authority managers have the power to bypass any vetoes on the implementation of the Traveller accommodation programme.

We had recommended a relatively small but properly staffed body to implement its functions, managed by a similar representative board along the lines of the current national Traveller accommodation consultative committee. We did not recommend that it would do delivery centrally. In terms of the reason for that, I wish to acknowledge that delivering Traveller specific accommodation is extremely challenging for local authorities. It is not an easy function. We felt that having it delivered at local level by people with local expertise who were aware of the local planning issues was the best way to proceed but where implementation is not happening, somebody needs to be monitoring and identifying that centrally and enforcing implementation.