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Frequent ministerial and personnel changes within the DCLG are making the department less efficient, a report by a committee of MPs has warned.

The communities and local government select committee said its latest annual review into the department revealed a number of challenges ahead. These included the impact of economic and financial pressures on housing and internal challenges posed by the change of ministers and staff turnover.

The report predicts that achieving the £887m in efficiency savings target set out in the 2007 comprehensive spending review by the March 2011 deadline will be 'extremely challenging' for the DCLG.

Failure to meet these will leave a very significant hole in the department’s plans, it warns.

The report reveals a lack of continuity caused by an average tenure in post of just nine months for officials and, over the lifetime of the department, barely a year for a senior minister.

'The department can help itself in the task of improving its capability by improving its workforce planning,' the report says. 'Leaving staff in post for an average of just nine months before moving them on to something new is not a sensible way to run an organisation.'

The committee's report adds that if its successors in the next parliament choose to repeat this exercise of examining the performance of the department next year, 'we would expect them to look for evidence that this issue has been addressed'.

The report adds that the committee had hoped that the DCLG would have developed its role as a 'big hitter' within Whitehall and elsewhere over the past year.

'The evidence we have taken for this inquiry, including from the department’s most recent annual report, shows that there remains some way to go before it can be described as such,' the report says.

'However, there is evidence of progress, and further evidence that the department’s ministerial leadership is aware of what is required and is in a position to exert the influence which is required to pursue CLG’s policy goals effectively.'