Meeting documents

            Meeting: Cabinet (County Hall, Durham - Committee Room 2 - 04/12/2008 10:00:00 AM)

                  Item: A10 Planning System Governance/Committee Arrangements

         

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Report of John Richardson, Corporate Director Environment Cabinet Portfolio Member for Economic Regeneration - Councillor Neil Foster and Cabinet Portfolio Member for Environment - Councillor Bob Young

Purpose of the Report

1. To consider proposals for committee/decision making structures for the new Planning Service.

Background
2. The Planning Workstream have presented a high level option report to help guide future service design for the new Planning Service.

3. The Workstream have explored options for governance in relation to the high level option. This report identifies the preferred option for a new committee structure for planning:

The Role of Planning in Place

4. The Planning Workstream welcomes the inclusion of an integrated planning service at the centre of the Development, ‘place-shaping’, service grouping, which would operate at both the strategic and local level, to directly deliver the statutory planning functions of the new council. The service would integrate the formal planning processes of plan making with delivery through the pro-active management of development (through the exercise of determining both planning and building control applications).

5. In accordance with the Government White Paper ‘’Planning for a Sustainable Future’’ the proposal is to ensure the new planning arrangements positively contribute to the achievement of sustainable communities, providing a vision for a planning system which supports vibrant, healthy sustainable communities, promotes competitiveness and development, in a way that is integrated with the delivery of other sustainable development objectives and ensures that local communities and members of the public can make their views heard.

6. Planning embraces both plan making and implementation through development management. The White Paper emphasises the need to consider ‘’planning and development holistically if we are to ensure that it delivers the best outcomes for us as a nation and for local communities’’. The exercise of development management needs to be undertaken within a clearly defined and publicly adopted and endorsed policy framework, which reflects national, regional and local planning priorities. The exercise of development management cannot operate without strong and consistent policy input. The integration of policy and control is essential if we are to change the perception of planning as a form of constraint or regulation to a key delivery vehicle of change and development required to help shape the places and communities of County Durham and help meet a key LGR objective of revitalising its economy and communities. The co-ordination of these functions is considered essential and wholly in accordance with Government intention.

7. The Planning Workstream proposes that the ‘new planning service’ should embrace the concept of development management as opposed to development control. This includes a wide range of activities such as designing, analysing, influencing, promoting, engaging, negotiating, decision-making, co-ordinating, implementation, compliance and enforcement. This more holistic and pro-active approach is considered important to establishing a much more ‘can-do’ as opposed to regulatory service, and much more conducive to facilitating change and economic development. As a consequence planning can more positively contribute to the revitalisation of County Durham. This approach requires effective interaction between planning policy and planning implementation and the other strategic services identified in the ‘development’ service grouping.

8. The inclusion of a Planning Head of Service, to sit alongside other service heads under the Corporate Director in the Development Directorate is therefore fully supported. In accordance with RTPI guidance this position should be filled by a suitably qualified chartered town planner.

Proposed Delivery of the Planning Service

9. The Planning Workstream’s proposal would create:
· At the strategic level a service with specific responsibility related to both strategic planning policy formulation and strategic development management. This would provide strategic input into place shaping at county level; regional and county level statutory planning policy; and the management of major or strategic (including mineral and waste developments) development proposals. The specific definition of development applications to be determined at this level would be essentially defined by CLG definitions to include major housing, industrial and retail/commercial developments which have significantly more than a local impact, and comprise approximately 5% of all development applications in the county. The service would need to be supported by a clear defined role for Cabinet for plan making and constituted planning committee system for determining major development proposals.
·

10. The activities to be undertaken at each strategic level are described in Table 1 (see Appendix 2). These functions help determine the governance and staffing/structural options.

Context

11. At present Planning operates through Policy Committees or Cabinets, for policy formulation, implementation and monitoring/evaluation of delivery. Councils also operate sub-committees or regulatory committees for making decisions on planning applications. About 10% of all planning applications are determined through committees, the remainder, including any subsequent appeal or enforcement issues are progressed by officers under delegation schemes agreed by Council. All building control work is undertaken through officer delegation. 12. Planning committees range in size from 13 to 49 members, they meet every 3 to 4 weeks, dealing with 550-600 applications per year and on average 6-10 applications per meeting. Existing arrangements include both daytime and evening sittings.

13. Councils are required to process applications speedily. NI’s (and previously BVPI’s) monitor the speed of processing in accordance with the following CLG targets:
· 60% of major residential, commercial and industrial applications to be determined within 13 weeks:
· 65% of minor residential, commercial and industrial applications to be determined within 8 weeks
· 80% of all other applications to be determined within 8 weeks

14. Current performance achievement is as follows: 15. Planning performance is greatly influenced by the level of delegation of decision making to officers. The majority of planning decisions are not controversial or complicated nor invoke substantial public response. The majority are consistent with existing planning policy and therefore, the vast majority are approved. Most schemes of delegation enable such applications to be dealt with by officers, whilst enabling reference to Members for major developments, those not consistent with policy and those attracting significant objection. The level of delegation achieved by County Durham authorities is consistent with CLG guidance for efficient decision making and reflects the national average. 16. Whilst speed of decision making is not always the key requirement of the process, it does lead to higher levels of customer satisfaction and helps facilitate the development industry. Facilitating each committee can add on average two weeks to the time required to process applications and therefore significantly impacts on target achievement. 17. As can be seen from Table 2 above, County Durham planning authorities meet most nationally set planning targets, with only three narrow failures to meet identified targets. New arrangements for the planning service should seek to enhance performance and achieve top quartile delivery.

18. Table 3 (see Appendix 3) shows existing planning caseload and Committee arrangements and in comparison the number of wards/members within the new council available for the establishment of new committees.

Sub Area Service Delivery Options 19. The Workstream have considered options put forward for sub-area committees based on Sub County planning committees based on 3, 4 and 5 county sub-divisions as follows:
20. From a Planning perspective any sub-county service geography needs to be based on amalgamation of existing districts because:
· for the next 2/3 years decisions on planning applications will be based on existing district based local plan policies; and
· such planning decisions will need to take account of ‘past’ planning history which is organised and accessed on district based systems. 21. Any alternative approach would prove difficult for data retrieval and processing. Bearing in mind that the process of merging different planning systems, which are based on separate ICT platforms, by April 1st will be difficult to achieve, the new system will inevitably be based, in the interim, on the continuation of existing systems. 22. Based on the above, the following gives details of the potential caseload, in relation to planning applications, enforcement and building control, for options 1 (five sub-areas) and 3 (three sub areas) and for a county-wide committee. The number of applications to be decided at a county level reflects the current number of major or strategically significant applications, constituting approximately 5% of the total planning caseload.

Option 1

Caseload

Proposed Committee North West DurhamCentre and North DurhamEast DurhamSouth DurhamSouth West DurhamCounty

Average Annual DC Caseload83015007907201450250

Average Annual pre-app Caseload900550 11009701150

Average Annual Enforcement Caseload1400250140560

Average Annual BC CaseloadFull 390 Other 450Full 860 Other 1200Full 560 Other 270Full 440 Other 240Full 1300 Other 700

Option 3

Caseload

Proposed Committee North DurhamCentral and East DurhamSouth and West DurhamCounty

Estimated Average Annual DC Caseload1350 1800 2200250

Estimated Average Annual pre-app Caseload110014002120

Average Annual Enforcement Caseload200 +1450706

Average Annual BC CaseloadFull 689 Other 814Full 1120 Other 1035Full 1183 Other 950

23. The Planning Workstream support, as a preferred option, Option 3 for the following reason:
· It provides a best fit of population totals for each sub-area.
· It conforms to the geography of City Regions as presented in the RSS, with Sedgefield, Wear Valley and Teesdale relating to the Tees Valley City Region and the four northern authorities relating to Tyne Wear.
· It relates to existing Travel to Work areas.
· It relates to Housing Market Areas as defined by North East Assembly research for the RSS Housing Review (RSS may in future need to allocate housing totals on housing market areas instead of local authority boundaries).
· It provides a geography of service delivery consistent with other county-wide arrangements and some existing district based joint working arrangements.
· It allows a balance between local and strategic influences.
· It provides the best fit for member representation - with the three areas having 36, 46 and 44 elected members.
· It provides a strategic fit with existing development demands and resources. Other options would create great variations in caseload, some areas dealing with double the caseload of others.
· The resource required in relation to both cost and staffing, of both direct service delivery and committee support, is inevitably higher with more sub-area arrangements.
· The planning system depends upon timely and consistent specialist advice, particularly on design, conservation and landscape services. The ability and resource to provide this service will be greater with fewer sub-area arrangements.

A New Committee Structure for Planning

24. In order to facilitate the proposed principles of the new planning service, as described above, a committee structure should be based on:
· Cabinet - to be responsible for planning policy development;
· County Planning Committee - to be responsible for determining major/strategic planning applications, including major housing, industrial, retail/commercial, waste and mineral developments;
· Area Based Committees - to be responsible for determining all other planning applications.

25. The principles proposed for developing the new arrangements include:
· Balance between local elected member representation and adequate strategic representation from the whole of the new council;
· Governance preference for smaller committees to aid discussion and accountability;
· Levels of delegation to officers equivalent to existing to enable effective decision making and manageable committee/workload;
· A continuation of current arrangements to allow public speaking at planning committees;
· Meetings should be held reasonably frequently to enable planning decisions to be made quickly and meet current Government targets - reporting to committee can take up on average two weeks of the eight and thirteen week targets of an application.

26. At present decisions on about 90% of planning applications are considered by officers. Schemes of delegation, however, do include protocols and provisions to allow applications to be referred to members for decision as required, and members receive notification of all planning applications submitted. In addition, schemes of delegation referred all enforcement/compliance matters and the implementation of building regulations to officers. The Planning Workstream are preparing a draft scheme of delegation for planning for consideration as an LGR ‘must-have’. 27. The two options identified above are developed below in relation to possible governance arrangements.

Option 1

Proposed Committee North West DurhamCentral and North DurhamEast DurhamSouth DurhamSouth West DurhamCounty

Total Members per sub-area2236242222126

Proposed Committee Size1616 16161616

Members representing locality88888

Members representing the rest of the County8888816

Estimated annual caseload

83150807215050

Estimated Committee caseload

Every 2 weeks363362

Every 3 weeks595493

Every 4 weeks61266124

Option 3

Proposed Committee North DurhamCentral and East DurhamSouth and West DurhamCounty

Total Members per sub-area364644126

Proposed Committee Size16 16 1616

Members representing locality888

Members representing the rest of the County88816

Estimated annual caseload

13518022050

Estimated Committee caseload
Every 2 weeks	5	7	82
Every 3 weeks	8	10	13 3
Every 4 weeks	10	14	174

· Caseload based on 90% delegation.
· 5% of all applications to constitute major/strategic applications.
· Sub-area workload commensurate with existing ratio.
· Caseload is expressed as an average. There will inevitably be peaks and troughs, which could be managed by calling special meetings if required.

28. At Appendix 4 a review of committee and sub area arrangements in other local authorities is presented. Although this analysis is limited, it does give a flavour of caseload demands on committees. The most direct comparison to County Durham from a geographical point of view and from an overall caseload is East Riding of Yorkshire. The existing sub area arrangement in East Yorkshire appears similar to Option 3 with a three weekly committee cycle.

Conclusion

29. The establishment of a new committee structure is a fundamental aspect of the new Planning Service. It is essential also that the structure is established in advance of vesting day in order for Members to participate in training prior to taking on the duties of the local planning authority on 1 April 2009.

30. The work undertaken by the Planning Workstream suggests that the most appropriate and preferred system would comprise:
· A central committee dealing with major/strategic planning decisions, and comprising 16 Members;
· Three geographically defined sub areas based on the existing districts of Derwentside/Chester le Street, Durham City/Easington, and Sedgefield/Teesdale/Wear Valley:
· Committees in these location would consider the bulk of planning decisions;
· Meetings would take place on a three weekly cycle, with between 8-13 planning applications per meeting (current estimate);
· Composition of sub-area committees to be of 16 Members represented equally from the locality and from the rest of the county.

31. This is presented in diagrammatic form in Appendix 5. Recommendation 32. That Cabinet recommends to Full Council the proposed Planning Committee structure outlined in paragraph 30 above and in Appendix 5 and receives a further report on a new proposed scheme of delegation to underpin the Committee structure.

Background Papers

None

Contact: Bob Hope Tel: 01388 761570

Appendix 1: Implications

Local Government Reorganisation
(Does the decision impact upon a future Unitary Council?)
The Planning system is a statutory duty to be undertaken by the new Council.

Finance

Financial considerations of the preferred option will be undertaken in LGR service design. The preferred option, which identifies the smaller number of committees, is considered the most economic option.

Staffing

Staffing implications of the preferred option will be further considered in LGR service design.

Equality and Diversity

None

Accommodation

Further consideration needs to be given to the location of area committee meetings.

Crime and Disorder

None

Sustainability

None

Human Rights

None

Localities and Rurality

Further consideration needs to be given to the location of area committee meetings.

Young People

None

Consultation

The Planning process operates within procedures of open and transparent consultation and engagement. Public access to the service is available through stakeholder and neighbour consultation on applications and on representation at committee.

Health

None

	Derwentside	Chester-le-Street	Durham City	Easington	Sedgefield	Teesdale	Wear Valley	County	Total
Existing Caseload
Existing DC caseload (total applications)	870	500	1020	830	750	570	960	105	5605
Major	Others	35	835	20	480	40	980	35	7953571510560609002580 2605345
Listed Blg/Con Area Consents	12	10	80	0	10	75	35	0	222
	Derwentside	Chester-le-Street	Durham City	Easington	Sedgefield	Teesdale	Wear Valley	County	Total
Pre-app. Inquiries.	900	250	300	1100	970	450	700		4680
Enforcement caseload		200	1200	250	140	150	416		2356
Building Control Full Plans	389	300	560	560	440	243	500		2992
Building Control Other apps.	444	370	765	270	240	170	540		2799

Existing Member Structures

Committee Size in existing councils 2134221349152040

Cycle of meetings (weeks)34/53/434444

Average number of cases per year12570100957025133

Average number of cases per meeting56.5611

New Council

Wards in new council1171112113863

Members on new council2214222422616126

Appendix 4 - Committee Arrangement Comparisons.

AUTHORITY	No. of Committees	Members (No’s)	Cycle of Meetings	Start Time	Area Based	Strategic Committee	Average number of cases per committee.	Total number of decision to year march 2008
East Riding of Yorkshire	Full Planning Committee plus Eastern Planning Committee Western Planning Committee	15 12 12	All 3 weekly	All 2.00 p.m.	No Yes Yes	Yes No No	13 12	4479
Gateshead MBC	1 Planning Committee	23	Monthly	10.00 a.m.	No	Yes	12	1552
Newcastle City	D.C. plus D.C. Enforcement Sub Cttee	17 3	3 Weekly Has not met	9.30 a.m. N/A	No N/A	Yes N/A	6	2120
Sunderland City	Full Planning and Highways Cttee Plus D.C. North Sunderland Sub D.C. South Sunderland Sub D.C.Hetton, Houghton and Washington Sub	25 10 17 14	All Monthly	5.00 p.m. 3.30 p.m. 4.15 p.m. 5.00 p.m.	No Yes Yes Yes	Yes No No No	2 3 4/5	2004

Attachments

 LGR Planning Committee Summary.pdf;
 LGR Planning Committee System.pdf