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The dust is still settling in Whitehall after this month's Cabinet reshuffle. The old ODPM has a new name and a largely new ministerial team. As head of the Department for Communities and Local Government,Ruth Kelly assumes even more departmental responsibilities than John Prescott had.

The DCLG has taken on the communities and civic renewal functions previously undertaken by the Home Office, and has become home to the women and equality unit formerly at the DTI. It will also be the sponsor department for the new Commission for Equality and Human Rights.

The department is practising the equality message it preaches, with a ministerial team comprising five women and one man. The lone male is Phil Woolas, who was local government minister in the ODPM. Two more ODPM stalwarts, Yvette Cooper and Baroness Andrews, have been joined by Angela E Smith and Meg Munn. Smith moves to the DCLG from the Northern Ireland office and Munn from the DTI.

Woolas retains responsibility for local government and Cooper retains housing and planning.

Smith is expected to take on Cooper's previous interest in the ºÃÉ«ÏÈÉúTV Regulations.

In her opening days in the job, Kelly re-stated the department's commitment to stepping up delivery of homes and emphasised how the new responsibilities for communities, faith and equality would be integral in creating thriving and tolerant communities.

Kelly also repeated the government's determination to increase housebuilding to 200,000 units a year in England by 2016. She pledged to work with the Housing Corporation and housing associations to help those unable to buy their own homes.

Kelly has asked permanent secretary Peter Housden to carry out a review of the ministerial team and its relations with stakeholders in designing and delivering key programmes. Kelly is due to report to the prime minister by the end of June with an assessment of the department's challenges and a plan of action to tackle them.

With all the drama in political circles, the industry could be forgiven for having missed a report released by the ODPM at the end of last month. Rethinking the Planning Regulation of Land and Property Markets suggests three alternatives to detailed planning control:

• co-regulation, where developers and planners agree a code of practice and developers build what they want within that constraint
• positive planning, where land is designated in local development frameworks and parameters are specified for building
• greater use of restrictive covenants in property titles, to limit what can be built or redeveloped.

At the moment, these suggestions are simply part of a research paper. But they may give economist Kate Barker food for thought as she deliberates on the planning system.