A now significant number of LPA’s are using a free service provided by PlanningAlerts to provide email notification of planning applications for any given location. The service scrapes LPA websites to gather its data and links back to the application as published on the LPA site.
I’d be interested to know what you think of this service from both a user and LPA perspective.
Chris
As part of our Killian Pretty work we have produced a short guide on how to get the best from linking to content on the Portal.
If you are an LPA and want to cut down on those irritating calls from pesky applicants we suggest you point them our way. I know all very self-serving but honestly it can help and best of all it’s free.
Chris
Just a quick note to let you know that more than 15,000 planning applications were submitted online via the Portal in June.
We wont know what percentage of the total submitted that is until the end of this month but it’s another milestone reached.
Chris
I’ve noticed statements on at least 2 LPA’S websites making it clear they will no longer respond with informal written advice on PD unless it is in the form of a CLPD.
How common is this approach becoming and what are the drivers, is it the money, complexity of PD or something else entirely?
I’d love to know as it will help us shape our priorities.
Chris
One of the Killian pretty projects we are responsible for investigating is Recommendation 13(b) Develop an accredited Agents regime. Using the succesful implementation at St Helens as a potential model.
The simple idea being that having passed a quality test, perhaps over a range or quantity of applications an agent becomes accredited. The accreditation would be a quality mark that might ease passage of that agents subsequent applications through registration and potentially validation. The benefit to the agent being obvious and the lpa gets better quality applications.
It seems possible at this stage that the scheme might take one of 2 forms: either a national standard that an agent can obtain and use at any LPA or a set of guidelines for a locally operated scheme lpa by lpa.
I’m interested to hear your views on the principle, pitfalls and/or benefits of the idea.
I thought you might appreciate a heads up on the current position re: the e-Consultation Hub.
There are currently 42 LPAS using the Hub to consult with Statutory consultees including the Environment Agency and English Heritage and more recent additions including Natural England and The Coal Authority.
Some LPAs such as Kingston–upon-Thames are using the hub extensively to improve internal consultation and others such as the Borough Council of King’s Lynn and West Norfolk are engaging their Parishes to start using the service with effect from July 2009. They are also reporting significant cash savings as a result of an integrated approach to electronic applications and consultation via the hub.
Overall the number of consultations made transacted via the Hub have quadrupled in the last 2 months.
At least 2 of the major ICT suppliers to LPAs are now developing connectors to provide a direct automated link between the Hub and their back office with at least 1 in the advanced stages of development. More news on this to come soon I hope.
DCLG and in particular the Killian Pretty programme is showing great interest in our work and are fully committed to the e-Consultation hub. A revised take-up plan has just been agreed that will see take-up soaring between now and the end of the year.
A highly respected figure within the planning community has suggested to me that the S106 process would benefit from some standardisation and automation.
What’s proposed is a system underpinned by a standard template that might be adopted by an LPA and customised locally to match local requirements. The software would enable the potential applicant to calculate their likely S106 obligation in advance of making an application.
What do you think, is it likely to be taken up?, would it be useful?
As we haven’t gone near this before I thought I’d seek your views.
Chris
In response to your feedback we have now adjusted the forms for printing so that the heavy dark bands have been significantly lightened. This will hopefully save your ink and time. At the same time we have slightly darkened previously greyed out text to make it more visible.
Just to give you an idea of the work we are undertaking on the forms at any given time here is just one of the current work boards our techies are referring to.
1App workboard
As any of you who have read our Business plan will no doubt already know (what do you mean you haven’t!) we would like to do for BC what we’ve tried to do for DC. I hope you will have noticed the integration of Building regs within the Interactive House and the fact that you can download all the approved Docs for nothing as a start.
However we hear regularly from agents that we should do more than we are doing and we talk often with the good folks at LABC, Submitaplan and others about developing things further.
Before we make our next steps though I’d like to invite your feedback on where you feel we can best add value or indeed where we should leave well alone.
I’ve been polishing my crystal ball and trying to envisage what’s going to happen to planning application numbers over the next 12 months. It’s business plan revision time and frankly I’m stumped.
In common with all great managers (!) I like to set SMART goals but with all the lovely data from the last 6 years now practically worthless it’s a little tougher to do. The canny way forward is to continue to set an increase in the percentage of online to offline applications but the salesman in me wants to see the money (metaphorically speaking).
Given that overall application numbers are down by an average of 30% over the last few months, what do you think will happen over the next 12 months?
It will be interesting to compare the view from different points in the process.
Chris
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