Agenda item

The Assistant Director of Planning presented a report that provided an overview of the processes followed by Planning Services further to a recommendation associated with findings reached in connection with a Stage three Member Review Panel under the Council’s Corporate Complaints Procedure.

The report outlined the challenges faced by the service in the undertaking of their work, with a specific focus upon Development Management and planning application handling.

The Sub-Committee noted that the service currently comprises of several teams:

a.    Development Management team handles the majority of the planning applications submitted in the borough.  It also provided a range of pre-application advice to residents, small businesses, developers and their professional representatives.

b.    Major Projects team; handles strategic planning applications submitted in the borough. It also provided pre-application advice.

c.    Planning Enforcement team; investigates and resolve alleged breaches of planning control.

d.    Building Control, the team handles submissions made under the Building Regulations.

e.    Development Planning and Transportation, the team was responsible for producing key policy documents, including the Local Plan, the Local Implementation Plan and the borough’s Transport Strategy.

f.     Local Land Charges team was responsible for issuing official searches of the Land Charges Register. The team was also responsible for Street Naming and Numbering.

The Assistant Director of Planning outlined that Planning and other related applications were generally subject of 8, 13 or 16 week statutory timeframes, depending upon the type of development being proposed. 

The decision on an application was taken either i) under powers delegated to the Assistant Director and her officers or ii) via the Planning or Strategic Planning Committees, in the event that the development type does not fall within the scope of delegated powers or it has been called in to committee by a Ward Councillor.  In all cases, reports are authorised by a separate senior officer.  If it was a delegated decision, a decision notice would be issued thereafter.  If it was a Committee decision, the decision notice would be issued following the Committee meeting.

It was noted that performance against statutory timeframes was monitored both locally and nationally via a range of performance indicators. The Government measures performance against quality and speed indicators. Members were informed that failure to meet the targets set could result in the Council being designated as poorly performing with applicants for planning permission being able to choose not to use the Council for determining the application. 

The Sub-Committee noted that in the event that a decision was not reached on a planning application, then it is open for an applicant to appeal against non-determination via the Planning Inspectorate.  In the absence of a non-determination appeal, it remains open to the Council to reach a decision on the application.

The report also outlined if a planning application goes beyond the statutory deadline, it was good customer practice amongst all Local Planning Authorities to keep an applicant or their agent updated on what was happening with their submission, why and when a decision would be reached.

The Sub-Committee was informed that in the event that it becomes evident that a decision could not be made on the application during the statutory timeframe, an officer may request what was called an ‘Extension of Time’ agreement.  The agreement establishes a revised deadline for determining the application, which could be helpful when dealing with a complex application and negotiations were underway in respect of the application revisions.

Members noted the two key issues which were impacting upon the service’s ability to strongly perform within Development Management. The fluidity of staffing, over the last nineteen months (from April 2017), nineteen members of the team have moved on to new opportunities. 

This fluidity had resulted in a skills and local knowledge deficit within the team, particularly at Senior and Principal level and it had impacted upon the team’s capacity to deal with some applications promptly and effectively. 

The Sub-Committee also noted that the application administration process often hindered the prompt handling of an application up to the point where the case officer commenced the assessment process. In was stated thatthese two issues have impacted and are continuing to impact upon performance and customer focus, which was leading in some cases to customer dissatisfaction being expressed at service level and formal corporate complaints being lodged, as was the case in the specific example which triggered the Adjudication and Review meeting.

The Assistant Director of Planning outlinedthat to deliver the Council’s place making vision, it was essential that the service offered by those determining planning applications was of a high level, pro-active and had a delivery/customer led mind set.

The Sub-Committee noted that the following works have been commissioned to tackle the challenges:

1.    A review of the service was undertaken by the Planning Advisory Service to explore any areas of weakness in service provision; identify and implement smarter ways of working to improve efficiency and identify implement the potential for customer service and efficiency improvements.  It was stated that good progress had been made since the review.

2.    The Planning Services restructure; the proposals reorganises the team to create three new teams: Development Management, Strategic Planning and Spatial Planning. The significant growth in capacity would help to unlock the potential within team.  It was intended that recruitment to all posts would be completed by the end of the financial year.

3.    The third stream of work involves the transfer of part of the planning application process to an external service provider. It was considered that the element of the determination process was key to unlocking improvements with planning application handling.  The project to deliver this transfer was underway.

The Sub-Committee thanked the Assistant Director of Planning for the report update and noted the content of the report.