Agenda item

A Horner introduced the item and ran through the main highlights of the report.

-       The paperless transition with town and parish councils has gone well and there has been positive feedback at the bimonthly meeting with the hardware and software that has been provided.

-       There are still issues with the operation of the public website and its functionality. The department is aware of the issues concerning comments that have been submitted not appearing on the website but work is ongoing with the IT department and supplier to resolve this.

-       Members were assured that all documents were being received and officers have all the information available to them to take into account when making their decision. The function issue on the website is only affecting the public.

-       There has been a change to the scheme of delegation and the Development Management Committee has changed from a three week cycle to monthly. This change seems to be working well despite initial timing issues – these have been resolved through better agenda management and reordering the agenda prior to the meeting to allow all applications with speakers to go first.

-       Planning performance agreements have been introduced which allows for greater interaction with applicants and has increased income. This has helped to manage the overall processing of applications and if it is believed that the application may take longer than the statutory time, then officers agree a more realistic timetable with the applicants. This also protects the council from having to refund planning fees if the decision hasn’t been made in the time stated.

-       There is a positive trend in fee income. The government released a white paper which could potentially allow local authorities to increase their planning fees by 20%, this legislation should be before parliament very soon and hope it will be in place by the end of the financial year.

-       There has been a steady and sustained increase in planning applications – we are expecting the LA3 application to be submitted before Christmas which is expected to be 1100 homes and schools. This one of the biggest applications that Dacorum has ever dealt with and requires a large number of resources. A case officer can generally deal with about 30-40 small applications at one time, but officers dealing with major applications only have about 2-3 cases. The LA3 application has meant working with 3^rd parties such as HCC and the CCG.

-       The Brownfield Land Register is currently in production which will identify sites for development. Some of these sites will be given permission in principle which gives the department a different method to authorise development.

-       The department is working with IT to find a replacement for Acolaid which will be a big project. It is an important opportunity to learn lessons from the previous system, look at how to improve efficiencies and have a better public interface. This process will take several months and currently soft market testing is underway to find out what is on the market. The most important element is to ensure a smooth data transfer as there is 15-20 years’ worth of records to transfer. This new software also covers building control and land charges.

-       One issue that has been raised by councillors that is not in the report is the difficulty experienced in trying to contact case officers. At the bimonthly town and parish councils meeting, clerks expressed their disappointment in some areas of the service. Work will be carried out to remind officers of good practice and ensure their out of office on both their voicemail and email is up to date. Also, if officers are part time, they should be stating their working hours and days on the bottom of their emails. Officers should respond to calls and emails in a timely manner and should also leave a message to say they have returned someone’s call if they do not answer. The first point of public contact is the Customer Service Unit who then field the calls through to officers.

A Horner was happy to take questions.

Councillor Timmis said the main issue for residents was that when they make comments, they do not appear on the website and do not get any acknowledgment from the planning department that their comments have been received. This is making the council look bad.

A Horner said this was a fair comment and said he was aware of the issues being experienced. There needs to be a short term solution to this problem and a long term replacement with the new system.

Councillor C Wyatt-Lowe referred to the LA3 application due to be submitted, this was a huge application needing extensive work. What resources does the department have to ensure that their work is thorough and day to day jobs in the department do not suffer?

J Doe said this was a valid concern. The LA3 application will be allocated to a senior officer who will have a case load of about 2-4 major applications and preparatory work has already begun. There is currently a system of overtime operating to soak up the day to day jobs. The budget setting process should allow for growth in the service in anticipation of future pressures and this will be subject to Council approval. The potential increase in planning fees could generate £120-150,000 in extra income which will be ring fenced for the planning department.

Councillor C Wyatt-Lowe said it was very frustrating trying to contact case officers, councillors are also busy people and the delay in trying to contact officers does not allow councillors to perform their duties as well as they could.

A Horner said he would take the comments on board and work towards making officers more efficient. He asked Councillor C Wyatt-Lowe if she got a quicker response via email.

Councillor C Wyatt-Lowe said response times were better via email but sometimes it is necessary to speak to the officer.

Councillor Anderson endorsed the comments from Councillor C Wyatt-Lowe and said a planning application in his ward that he objected to was granted under delegated powers because officers did not respond to emails. This issue needs to be solved.

Councillor Hicks said Tring Town Council was getting complaints from residents. How does the three week delay in validating applications affect consultation information being sent to residents? Some residents do not know that an application is before the Development Management Committee, people are becoming frustrated and hopefully this will improve.

A Horner said the delay in validation shouldn’t make a difference as the notice is not sent out until the application is validated. No decision can be made when an application is out for comment.

Councillor Hicks questioned how a decision can be made in eight weeks if there is a three week delay at the start.

A Horner said officers agree an extension of time with applicant. If it is a delegated matter then it does not need to go to the Development Management Committee.

Councillor Riddick asked about the telephone system – does the department not have a hunting system so that if one officer doesn’t pick up, it then moves onto another phone until the call is picked up.

J Doe said it depends on how each department is set up but believes the corporate system should allow that.

Councillor Riddick referred to paragraph 3.3 and said the number of applications has remained constant but it is the scale and complexity that is the problem. He asked how the department is dealing with the resources it has.

J Doe said this goes back to the budget setting process and trying to expand resources. These concerns are experienced in other local authorities. There is also an issue with the supply of planners. Currently, officers have a carefully managed workload and trainees have been appointed so they can focus on the smaller, simpler applications. The department does have performance management team meetings to discuss and pick out the barriers on certain applications.

Councillor Riddick said another problem was retaining good staff. Although employing trainees was good, it takes a long time to train them before they become fully functional planning officers.

J Doe said these are all well-made points. Senior staff have to give assistance to the trainees. There is also the wider issue of local authority salaries and there is now less parity in pay and Dacorum do not currently have market force supplements.

Councillor Birnie referred to paragraph 2.5 and asked for clarification regarding the increasing in scope for those items that can be approved under delegated powers and not go to the Development Management Committee.

A Horner said the changes were introduced by his predecessor, Sara Whelan. The changes were approved at Full Council and are now set out in the Constitution.

J Doe said a major change was small applications where Dacorum Borough Council was the applicant no longer needed to go to the committee. For example, verge hardening projects with no objections from residents.

Councillor Birnie understood that officers were under pressure but asked what effect agency staff have on the department’s efficiency as some reports are not up to standard.

A Horner said they currently have one agency planner who is very experienced. Agencies offer a number of different people and it is important to carefully select the right people.

Councillor Birnie said the Development Management Committee is often faced with contradictory and inconsistent information. The committee are told to judge each application on its merits yet in the current agenda, there is reference to a similar scheme down the road. He questioned why it was necessary to reference CIL amounts in reports – this should not have any impact on the committee’s decision.

J Doe said CIL was charged irrespectively and there is no negotiation. It is important that members are aware of the charge, especially if they are concerned about infrastructure. He said he would arrange to meet with Development Management Committee members to discuss Highway issues.

Councillor Anderson asked if the attempt to get the quality of highways advice improved could be added as a heading in the reports detailing the ongoing improvements, and this was accepted.

Councillor Matthews asked if the brownfield land register would create an increase in demand.

J Doe said they had taken on a temporary officer to establish the register. Its purpose is to encourage take up of otherwise unused land. Part 2 of the process is to grant the larger sites permission in principle. The effect on workload is yet to be seen.

Councillor Anderson asked if the register will be broken down by ward.

J Doe said this is something they could do.

Councillor Matthews referred to paragraph 2.9 and the possible suspension of technical support from Accolaid in the medium term.

A Horner said there was no deadline yet and believes that the system has a couple of years left which is a reasonable timescale to replace the system.

Councillor Matthews asked if there would be a parallel running of both systems whilst the new system was being implemented.

J Doe said he had no worries about the technical support running out, Accolaid is a very old system and has been used for about 15-20 years. It is a high priority to replace.

Councillor Barrett questioned the department’s resources and wondered why a senior officer was discharging conditions on planning applications.

A Horner said the discharging of conditions was part of the process and it would not be suitable for other officers to be assigned this role because they would have to familiarise themselves with the case. It would not be very efficient.

Councillor Barrett said that Bovingdon and Chipperfield parish council had received great help, especially from Paul Newton.

Councillor Anderson wondered if the problems with validating applications, with the non-appearance of public comments on the website, and that sometimes parish councils were finding key documents were missing from the website were all linked, and asked if replacing Accolaid would resolve all three problems.  

A Horner confirmed that a new system would hopefully solve the public comments problem, and that the separate resolution of the validation problem, as previously discussed, would resolve the missing documents problem.

Councillor Anderson was concerned that a number of issues were becoming prolonged, and suggested the committee could become more aggressive in requiring timescales for the resolution of these issues.

J Doe said a timescale and plan had been developed.

Outcome

That the Strategic Planning and Environment Overview and Scrutiny Committee approve the report.