Agenda item

This report showcases the ongoing work to improve the performance of the BCP Council planning service. 

There has been good progress in stabilising and improving the Planning service, with a performance management culture being strengthened which has weekly coordinating groups meeting to actively address and reduce the backlog of outstanding cases. 

The Portfolio Holder for Connected Communities presented a report, a copy of which had been circulated to each Member and a copy of which appears as Appendix 'A' to these Minutes in the Minute Book.

The Committee were informed that there had been good progress in stabilising and improving the Planning Service, with a performance management culture being strengthened which has weekly coordinating groups meeting to actively address and reduce the backlog of outstanding cases. There had been a backlog of planning applications for a long time and in 2021 there was a plan to try to deal with the backlog to get the number of applications in the planning system down and deal with things much quicker.  Significant progress had been made with these and the backlog had been reduced to 50% of what it was previously. Old applications dating back to 2015 had been removed and the service was now focusing on early 2022 applications. Ongoing performance monitored by the Department for Levelling-up, Housing and Communities and seemed to be at a place to meet their requirements and no intervention was needed.  There was still a way to go to reduce the backlog and the barriers that caused it.

The Council was awarded £100,000 from the planning skills delivery fund to try to deal with the backlog and keep on the trajectory of improving.

The planning improvement journey doesn’t stop and it was hard to recruit planners currently.

In the following discussion a number of issues were raised by the committee which included:

• That it was disappointing to see applications that had been referred to the inspectorate due to non-determination. Whether there were any measures in place to ensure it doesn’t happen as it incurs a risk of cost to the authority.  Non determination of appeals are quite rare there are particular circumstances that dictate them. 
• What the £100,000 from the Planning Skills Delivery Fund was being spent on and whether there would be any spent on planning training as there would be two planning committees. It would be used to address the backlog as agency staff were currently being used to assist with this. Agency staff costs were in excess of that amount. It was not related to the training budget.
• The current split between planning and agency staff is currently 16 agency members of staff which is just under a quarter of staff.
• The report included an update on MasterGov which is the new system that will replace the 3 legacy systems. There was a clear desire to move to MasterGov to make it easier to look up applications. Data cleansing has taken a while to move information over. It was due to go live in Summer/Autumn 2024.
• The current system allows people to look back at historic data, would the new system do that? It was intended that there will be a full data migration to the new system.
• Whether the new system would allow better cross department working with premises licencing or HMO licensing. The system will be more transparent and easier to use which will make referencing easier. However, licencing have different objectives and the system cannot intercede on other areas due to legislation, so there will be separation.
• Were agency staff to solely to address the backlog or to address the 25% shortfall of staff. The ideal situation would be to not use any agency staff. There was an interim structure in place with people moving up into roles and a number of vacancies. Those staff were asked if they were applying for those roles of if they were a senior and there was internal re-appointment into those roles which allowed agency staff to leave those roles. There was an intention to go out and fill vacancies.
• The Council performance chart shows performance levels with red and green rating, red meaning below the government target of 70% for minor projects in Poole, was there any insight into why. Minors include applications for 1 to 9 houses expectation that could be determined in 8 weeks BCP was a tight urban area with lots of constraints, they can be quite complicated which is why they take longer. Minors is an issue due to complexity.
• Whether the higher number of complaints in Poole is in line with the minors? There had been issues in relation to staffing in Poole where capacity was lost which meant that the application process wasn’t able to go as quickly.  It was a short term staffing issue that couldn’t have been planned for.  The work was highlighted in regards to how well hey have reduced the complaints.
• Journey on the reliance of agency staff, although using 25% now, how has that changed in the last couple of years. It was noted that this had reduced but not at a fast pace and was higher 2 years ago but the journey is continuing.
• What proportions of planning staff live locally. No exact data but pushing to try and to recruit people who are local.

RESOLVED

That the update on the BCP Planning performance be noted.