Four unitary authorities have recently taken a major step towards greater efficiency by fully integrating their planning back-office systems with the Portal’s online application service.
This means online applications are now retrieved automatically into their own IT systems.
The move – by Cornwall Council, Chester West & Chester Council, Chester East Council and Northumberland County Council – means they no longer have to manually retrieve online applications and re-key the information into their systems for registration and validation. The change does not affect the submission process for applicants.
This will help the authorities make greater efficiency and resource savings from working electronically and allow other planning processes to be streamlined.
These larger unitary authorities were created in April 2009 following a Local Government Review in which many councils were merged.
We will now be working with each of the authorities aiming to promote online application submission.
This has already started at Cornwall Council, which has written to all agents who submit by paper to encourage them to go online and has introduced an agent accreditation service for online applications.
Patience and perseverance
Everyone submitting online (I’ll settle for 80% in the meantime)
A budget to improve 1App
Continuing growth
Even more advertisers
And on a personal note:-
Less stress
Occasional good luck
Visibly reduced waistline
Enhanced golf game
What about you?
Prompted by the clearly polarising topic of validation and information requirements I took a few minutes to browse around the web at the weekend and was surprised to see a significant number of Agent Accreditation schemes in play.
You may recall we tried to put some weight behind this idea a couple of years ago with limited success. As these schemes offer a win-win for agents and authorities alike I thought I’d ask for your views.
I’m interested to know how many LPAs are operating the schemes, how are they working out and if there is anything we can do to help.
In case you missed last week’s Planning Portal news on the Penfold Review we’ve been asked to support the work the Government is doing on non-planning consents.
The Penfold Review found that finding consistent information on some development consent regimes is difficult for end users and businesses. The review stated it was difficult to understand which consents are necessary and that the process is complex to navigate. Read more…
In October 2011 the Planning Portal processed 24,231 electronic planning applications.
We also received a record 812,086 visits from a record 347,316 visitors
Page views was also highest in 18 months at 8,575,319
Meanwhile there were 132,778 downloads of the Approved Documents (again a record high)
So it’s not all doom and gloom then……..
LPAs:
What do you think, would you support a common list hosted by the Portal or would the perceived need for local differentiation prevent it?
Agents:
If we can’t achieve the above, would there be any benefit in hosting the existing local lists on the Portal or would that simply be unnecessary duplication?
Following the news that the tower containing Big Ben is leaning, I thought I’d big up Bristol’s own and, may I say, far more impressive leaning tower.
It’s just a couple of hundred yards from our office and is still going strong after more than 600 years.
Who needs perpendicular? And where were Building Control when these foundations went in?
Last week, I updated you on the revamped Working with LPAs pages, this week it’s time for professional applicants to get a content refresh.
The Working with Professionals section has been redesigned to provide help and guidance to planning professionals who are considering working online for the first time – as well as useful hints and tips for experienced Portal veterans. Read more…
Time for another LPA-focussed post – so apologies in advance to all those not toiling away in planning offices all around the country.
One of the Portal’s key objectives is to increase the number of planning applications submitted electronically. A large part of our success so far has been achieved through the excellent partnerships we’ve built with LPAs.
Naturally, we want to make sure LPAs have the necessary tools to receive, process and determine applications electronically and to help challenge the culture of planning to move towards newer and better ways of working. Read more…
• The Planning Portal will deliver more than £0.5bn in quantifiable benefits to the UK economy over the next four years.
• In Q1, 2012 the Portal will process its one millionth online planning application.
• Each month there are almost eight million page views of the Portal website
• In the current financial year alone there will be circa 10 million visitors to the Portal website and close to two million downloads of the Building Regulations Approved Documents.
• The Planning Portal will cost the taxpayer less than £4m over the next three years.
• Last week I turned down a request to spend 94p on post-its
P.S We still have advertising slots available
