Issue - meetings

To present the report of the working group.

The chair, on behalf of the Planning Service Scrutiny review working group, presented the findings of the review which had been carried out following the unprecedented exit of planning staff in 2021. It was reported that areas of concern included workload, morale, recruitment and retention, member/officer relations, lack of feedback to senior management and early engagement of members in the planning application determination process. Attention was drawn to the recommendations within the report. It was noted that a lot of work had already taken place to address the issues and the Director (Community & Development) had put in place an action plan and established a range of thematic working groups focussed on improvements to the service.

Whilst there were still recruitment problems, members thanked the Planning Manager for his hard work since coming into post. The Planning Manager reported that numbers of outstanding applications were reducing and workloads in terms of the number of applications being handled by one officer had reduced.

The importance of attending planning agenda meetings in order to maintain an awareness of upcoming applications and ask questions was emphasised, along with the importance of the Planning Policy Working Group.

In terms of recommendations, members felt the workload management tool was crucial in order to monitor workloads and escalate issues to the strategic leadership team if necessary. It was also felt that an officer/member engagement event would be a helpful opportunity to meet officers and to improve working together and that officers should be reminded of the process for addressing member behaviour.

RESOLVED –

(i)            The recommendations in the report be endorsed;

(ii)          Progress be monitored by the Scrutiny Commission and Finance & Performance Scrutiny.

To present the report of the working group.