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Lewes and Eastbourne
Councils

Agenda item

Summary of Performance for the Planning Service for 2016.

Report of the Specialist Advisor for Planning.

Minutes:

The committee considered the report of the Senior Specialist Advisor for Planning which provided a summary of performance in relation to key areas of the Development Management Services for 2016.

 

Given the many varied types of planning applications received, central Government required all Councils to report performance in a consistent and coherent manner. To this end the many varied applications were combined together into three broad categories Major, Minor and Other.  Government had recently amended the criteria for the assessment of the Council’s performance which was detailed in the section regarding special measures within the report.

 

The report detailed the following elements:

 

Special Measure Thresholds – This looked at new government targets.

Planning Applications – This compared the volumes of delegated applications and the approval rates.

Pre Application Volumes – A comparison by type and volume over time.

Refusals of Applications – A comparison of ward and decision level.

Appeals – An assessment of the Council's appeal record over time.

Planning Enforcement – An assessment of volumes of enforcement related activity.

 

Members were aware that Government had recently introduced new National performance criteria (Nov 16 on speed and quality) against which all Council’s would be judged. Failure to perform against these targets ran the risk of the Council be designated as ‘Non- Performing’ and special measures would initiated by Government.  The assessment of the draft against this new ‘special measure’ threshold had two sections - Speed of decision and Quality of decision - and would be reviewing the Council's performance on a backward rolling two year basis, the detail of which was highlighted in paragraph 2.2 of the report.

 

If the Council were identified as not complying with these standards/criteria they would be declared as ‘non performing’ and formal designation would follow.  In terms of formal designation there were two potential outcomes:-

 

·               Major applications the applicant would have the ability to bypass the Council and go straight to the Planning Inspectorate for determination. This would mean that the Council would lose determination control until such time as the designation was lifted.

 

·               Non-Major applications the Council would have to submit the Central Government an action plan addressing the areas of weakness that it had identified as having contributed to the underperformance.

 

Speed of Decision - It was evident that the decisions taken for the survey period were currently above the special measures threshold.  It was considered that there was significant headroom against those targets and as such the risk of Special Measures for Non-Performance was low.

 

Quality of Decision - This section looked at appeal decisions and specifically the number that had been allowed or overturned at appeal. This performance indicator was a reflection on the relevance of an up to date local plan and that the decision makers made correct and informed decisions.  Members noted that from the criteria given and the very low volumes of major applications progressed/determined within the survey period; meant that a small number of appeal decisions could have a significant impact upon performance and therefore there was a very high risk of the Council falling under special measures in this category.  An example of this was given in paragraph 2.9 of the report. 


Members acknowledged that for the last quarter of 2016 that the percentage of applications determined at delegated level had significantly increased; this was reflective of the changes recently made to the scheme of delegation.  The committee would receive a report highlighting the benefits of this change in terms of the costings to the Council and the speed of decision for the applicant at a future meeting.

 

The committee noted that the Council had refused fewer than 10% of the applications received, with the overwhelming majority being refused at delegated level. For 2016:- 49 cases were refused at delegated level and seven were refused at Planning committee level.  As with all applications that were refused there was the potential for appeal by the applicant. The Council for the year 2016 had received 28 appeal decisions which had been reported to committee throughout the year.  The total cost for appeal for costs claims was £5500.

 

RESOLVED:  That the report be noted.

 

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