Agenda item

To receive a presentation on the review of Planning. 

 26.1          The Chair welcomed the Development Manager, Paul Skelton, to the meeting and indicated that he would be giving a presentation on the Planning Systems Thinking Review which had been requested by the Overview and Scrutiny Committee at a previous meeting.

26.2           The Development Manager advised that the second phase of the review of the Development Management team was now underway.  Phase 1 had focused on the end-to-end times for planning applications from the point of receipt to the time when a decision was made.  A number of administrative processes had been streamlined as a result of the review which had helped to eliminate waste and reduce the number of transactions between administration staff and Planning Officers.  In respect of householder applications, which constituted the bulk of work for the Development Management team in terms of numbers, Officers had also become more proactive at the validation stage; rather than writing to the applicant or agent to advise that something was missing from the application, Officers tried to telephone instead which often meant that the missing documentation could be sent over by email on the same day.  Householder applications no longer had a hard copy file as Case Officers now used iPads on site visits; this enabled them to view plans and take photographs on the same device.  It had been intended to extend this approach to other types of application; however, Members were advised that the action plan for Phase 2 of the review had been pared back due to resource issues and to enable Officers to focus on what was really important.

26.3           Members were informed that the Phase 2 Action Plan included a workstream on Customer Service improvements and the ICT Team had helped with customer contact data capture.  Officer has also logged every telephone call, email and letter received within the department over a certain period and this would be compared with a similar data capture exercise completed last year.  It was intended to arrange visits to other local authorities to investigate how they dealt with customer service in terms of contacting officers and to organise customer forums for agents and Parish and Town Councils.  Alternative options for dealing with phone calls and responses would also be explored and an action plan would be pulled together to enable the changes to be put into practice.  A review of the records management processes was planned during Phase 2 and had been identified as a high priority by the Corporate Leadership Team following a complaint which had highlighted some shortfalls in the way information was currently held and what should be available within the public domain.  The Borough Solicitor was leading that particular workstream which was already well underway and had an agreed action plan in place.

26.4           The Development Manager advised that it had become clear that there were a number of roles within the team, particularly at senior level, that were not working as effectively as they might.  For example, the Team Leaders for the North and South of the Borough were Officers with a great deal of experience and knowledge who worked on large scale applications, however, they also had day-to-day responsibilities associated with being team leaders.  On that basis, another workstream within Phase 2 was to review the Development Management Team management structure and that work would commence in August 2016.  A second element would be to explore alternative software and applications which could help to enhance the Uniform system which was currently used by the Planning department.  Consideration would be given as to whether there were alternative ways to communicate with customers and provide information and this would be picked up with the Programme Officer later in the year.  In terms of recruitment, Members were aware that there were a number of vacant posts within the Planning department.  These roles had been advertised and interviews had resulted in the successful appointment of a Landscape Officer and Senior Planning Officer.  Further interviews were planned for the Planning Officer and Graduate Planner posts and, depending on the outcome, a further round of recruitment may be necessary.  It was noted that the Council seemed to have difficulty appointing staff to lower level roles, particularly graduate positions, and the Development Manager had been in touch with a former Council employee, Nick Croft, who worked in the Planning School at the University of the West of England to try to establish if there would be merit in re-advertising on the basis that it was the time of year when students would be finishing courses and looking for work.  Members were advised that there may be potential for introducing some apprenticeship roles at a later date.  The Development Manager acknowledged that there was also a need to review the enforcement process, which included the team structure; however, he hoped to firstly make an appointment to the role of Principal Enforcement Officer/Team Leader so that person could lead the review and that was dependent on the outcome of the review of the senior team structure.

26.5           It was noted that a further workstream for Phase 2 related to website improvements to make it easier for customers to find information.  A project team had been appointed and had already identified a number of changes which it was hoped could be implemented by November.  Assurance was provided that it would be easy to migrate information if the implementation date for this project did not coincide with the introduction of the new corporate website.

26.6           A Member queried how happy the Development Manager had been with Phase 1 of the review and he indicated that, overall, he had been very pleased with the outcomes.  Phase 1 had identified a lot of waste and the review had been a real team effort with all members of staff questioning what they did and why they did it.  The Member asked whether there was likely to be an improvement in communication once the vacant posts had been filled and the Development Manager advised that improvements had already been made and he was sure that would continue if Officers were under less pressure in terms of the volume of workloads.  The Deputy Chief Executive explained that planning was the first service which was really bearing the impact of changes to the public sector and private sector competition and difficulties with recruitment and retention were exacerbated by the unprecedented demand for the service.  The improvement plan included potential collaboration and commercial opportunities which would be explored during the second phase of the review and may change how the service operated in the longer term.  It should be borne in mind that it was a difficult environment to work in and to try to make improvements.

26.7           A Member noted that consideration was being given to alternative IT channels and it had been resolved that changing from the Uniform system to another provider would not be expedient.  In response, the Development Manager advised that the only solution which would be better than the current system would be to develop a bespoke system which would mean that the Council would not have to renew licences or buy new software from a particular provider; however, this would be prohibitively costly so it was considered that a watching brief should be kept on what others were doing and the Council could adopt something similar, if and when that opportunity came along.  A Member noted that the number of planning appeals was increasing and he questioned how this impacted upon Officer time.  Members were informed that it was the larger appeals which took up a significant amount of resource and, although a lot of that work was outsourced, the Case Officer was inevitably involved.  If the Council opted not to outsource, a particularly large appeal could take a Senior Officer away from their usual role for a period of six months which was clearly not sustainable.  He stressed that decisions were made on the merits of each individual planning application and, unfortunately, appeals had to be dealt with when they came along; outsourcing meant that this was not a huge issue and it was a situation which had become familiar to the Council in recent times.  In response to a further query, the Development Manager confirmed that the appeals process was very costly but it would be even greater if the Council was to fully resource a team to deal with appeals based on the worst case scenario when a number of large appeals were received.

26.8           A Member raised concern that a number of actions from Phase 1 of the review were still outstanding and he questioned how Phase 2 could be implemented without the previous stage being completed.  In addition, he sought clarification as to how actions would be monitored to ensure that performance continued to improve.  With regard to Phase 1, the Development Manager advised that a lot of the actions had already been implemented and the next stage would be to see whether any particular issues arose from those changes and whether there had been some unintended consequences which saved time in one particular part of the process but added to responsibilities elsewhere.  The review would be self-policing and assurance was provided that if things started to slip he would be made aware, either through Members, the Corporate Leadership Team or via the corporate complaints process.  In addition to this, the Deputy Chief Executive pointed out that one of the actions was to develop a set of local performance metrics which would help Managers to monitor performance.  In terms of recruitment, the Member went on to question whether consideration had been given to partnering with an architectural college.  The Development Manager felt that this was a very good suggestion and he indicated that, during the last round of recruitment, the University of the West of England had been specifically targeted; Birmingham City and Oxford Brookes Universities were relatively close by and had good planning schools.  A number of courses often included sandwich years which would be a good opportunity to bring in potential future Officers.

26.9           A Member questioned whether there would be any benefit in establishing an Overview and Scrutiny Committee Working Group to assist with the delivery of Phase 2 of the review, particularly given that some of the actions, such as visiting other local authorities, would be quite time consuming for Officers.  The Deputy Chief Executive indicated that, to date, the review had been very Officer-led and the Committee did need to be mindful of its workload, however, if it was something of particular interest to Members then, of course, it could be considered.  It was noted that there may be opportunities for Members to become more involved at a later stage when there was a clearer idea of potential alternative models which the Council might like to adopt.  The Member went on to raise concern that complaints continued to be received about the length of time it took Officers to respond to queries and this was something he felt needed to be addressed sooner rather than later.  The Development Manager provided assurance that Tewkesbury Borough Council stacked up well in terms of dealing with planning applications in comparison to the other local authorities within Gloucestershire, however, he recognised that customer service was an issue and this was something which would be at the forefront of Officers’ minds when they went to visit the other authorities.  There was a whole host of examples of different ways of working; some Councils monitored telephone calls very closely and Customer Services Advisers chased Officers if there was no response within a certain time frame.  He reiterated that this was a high priority and something which they would look to deal with quickly.  In addition, the Corporate Services Group Manager explained that his team had been asked to look at the state of play within Planning in terms of costs, staff numbers, processing times etc. to see how that compared with others. 

26.10         A Member suggested that it would be beneficial to look at the software used by other local authorities and was advised that this would be carried out as part of the visits.   Another Member sought clarification as to which Officers would be going on the visits and which authorities they intended to go to.  The Development Manager explained that no decisions had been made about which authorities to visit as yet, although South Oxfordshire District Council was likely to be included, based on its similarity to Tewkesbury Borough Council in terms of the challenges it faces, as well as some of the local authorities within the County.  It was intended that a range of Officers would carry out the visits; it was likely they would include the Development Manager, the Planning Support Services Leader, an Administration Officer and two Planning Officers. 

26.11         In response to a query regarding the new Senior Planning Officer, Members were informed that she was from Bath and North East Somerset Council and therefore had experience of dealing with the same type of issues experienced within Tewkesbury Borough e.g. large rural areas, historic environment etc.  She had been working as a Planning Officer for some time and was keen to make the step up to senior level.  In terms of lead-in times for training, this very much depended upon the person; however, it was likely to take an apprentice six or seven years to become a fully qualified member of the Royal Institute of Town Planning.  The Borough Council had been successful advocates for this approach in the past, taking on apprentices who had gone on to leave the authority as highly qualified, professional planners.  A Member went on to query whether an apprenticeship scheme could be put in place quite quickly and the Development Manager advised that it would be necessary to take stock of the position once the current round of recruitment had been fully completed but it was his intention to look at apprentices as a way forward. 

26.12         The Lead Member for Built Environment indicated that an unprecedented amount of planning applications were currently being received and it seemed that, when one issue was resolved within the Planning department, three more popped up in its place.  He welcomed the review, which he hoped would help to dispel the negative perception of the Planning department, and he thanked the Development Manager and everyone who had worked on the action plan.  Another Member was of the opinion that the Planning team was one of the best around, something which was demonstrated by the amount of Officers who been successful in taking up positions in the private sector upon leaving the authority.  Unfortunately, she felt that this was something that would always be an issue for local government which could not compete with the wages and opportunities within the private sector.  The Deputy Chief Executive explained that Tewkesbury Borough was a great platform for new planners to learn the trade with its large urban allocations, listed buildings, Conservation Area and Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.  There may be an opportunity to exploit this further in a commercial sense by bringing in additional work, as had been successfully achieved within One Legal, and work had commenced with the Association for Public Service Excellence (APSE) to understand how that might work within planning.

26.13         Having considered the information provided, it was

RESOLVED          That the Planning Systems Thinking Review Presentation be NOTED.