Agenda item

Planning Applications - Backlog Data

Meeting of Overview and Scrutiny Board, Monday 16th March 2015 6.00 p.m. (Item 127/14)

Minutes:

The Head of Planning and Regeneration explained that she had provided a written response to a number of questions that had previously been raised by the Board on the subject of the planning service. Whilst presenting her responses she highlighted the following matters for Members’ consideration:

· Prior to service transformation staff were allocated numerous planning applications each day regardless of their existing workloads. At times staff could potentially have a workload of up to 45 applications at any one time.

· Under service transformation applications were left in a box until the case officers had the capacity to deal with them.

· The backlog represented customer demand.

· A number of Councils that were undertaking service transformation applied a similar system and had managed at times to reduce the size of the backlog.

· The backlog was approximately 60 by the date of the meeting.

· It was likely that the backlog would remain at this level until the new financial year as the majority of Planning Officers’ leave years ended in March and many would seek to use up their leave that month.

Following the presentation of the responses Members discussed a number of key issues in further details:

· The potential for a Planning Officer to challenge experts consulted about a planning application when that advice appeared to be contradicted by the local context.

· The need for technical evidence to be available to challenge the views expressed by experts consulted in the planning process.

· The impact of large number of objections to a planning application on the workload of Planning Officers and the potential for patterns to emerge where residents had similar complaints.

· Current staffing arrangements in the Planning Department. Members were advised that the Development Control team was up to capacity, though there were two vacancies in the Planning Policy team and one member of staff on maternity leave.

· The potential for staff from both Redditch Borough Council and Bromsgrove District Council to work on the backlog and how tasks might be allocated across the 2 authorities.

· Difficulties arising from the fact that Planning Officers in Bromsgrove and Redditch were employed at different grades. These difficulties were compounded by the fact that Planning Officers were employed at a different level to Planning Policy Officers.

· The rights of staff to appeal any decisions about staffing grades reached through the job evaluation process.

· The possible future structure of a shared Planning service. Members were advised that it was likely a business case would be brought forward in the following 6 months.

· The greater volume of planning applications received by Bromsgrove District Council compared to Redditch Borough Council. Members were advised that Bromsgrove received a third as many applications.

· The fact that applications received by Bromsgrove District Council tended to be more complex and therefore required more time to assess.

· The similarities in the systems used at both Councils by the Planning Officers.

· Arrangements for notifying customers that there might be a delay in consideration of their planning application.

· The benefits of maintaining open communications with the customer about the progress of an application.

· The leave year arrangements for new staff which started the month that the employee was employed by the Council. It was suggested that in the long-term this would help to reduce the impact of staff leave on the backlog experienced in the spring each year.

· The value of quarterly updates on progress with clearing the backlog and the need to only invite Officers to attend a Board meeting if the size of the backlog increased further.

RESOLVED that Officers provide quarterly updates to the Overview and Scrutiny Board on progress reducing the backlog in the planning process.

Supporting documents: