Plans to resume in-person events
How the Planning Inspectorate will operate once lockdown restrictions are lifted (stage 4)
Route out of lockdown: implications for Planning Inspectorate and our customers
The government have confirmed that England will go into stage 4 of the Coronavirus road out of lockdown on 19 July, whilst cautioning that this will be the start of a new phase of continued caution, learning to live with the virus and the risks. We have been working through the implications to our casework and our workforce in response. Our latest guidance is on our Coronavirus information page.
Over the past 15 months we have adapted how we work to keep our casework moving whilst ensuring the safety and wellbeing of our inspectors and casework staff. As restrictions have changed and been lifted, we have made ongoing adjustments to our services and how and where we work.
With restrictions lifting, from the 19 July our office-based workers will begin to work some of their hours from our Temple Quay House headquarters. COVID restrictions differ in Wales.
After careful consideration we will make some changes to the way hearings and inquiries are organised and take place. Virtual hearings and inquiries already organised between now and 10 September will continue as planned to avoid disruption and potential confusion from re-organising them.
For hearings and inquiries taking place from 13 September we will be reverting to the pre-pandemic approach of them being arranged by local authorities. In-person events will be possible, but where participants (including the inspector) need to present their evidence or participate virtually this will need to be facilitated by the local authority.
Where in-person elements are planned, the local authority will need to be prepared for the event to be held fully virtually in case pandemic restrictions change.
The Inspectorate is also undertaking further work on the longer-term, sustained approach to hearings and inquiries. We are currently engaging and consulting with staff, stakeholders and customers about how we should work in the future. We expect both blended (which include in-person elements) and virtual events to be part of our future operating model.
One of the key questions we will need to decide on, following research and engagement, is what the balance should be between physical and virtual within and across different case types. The events being run by local authorities from 13 September will provide us with valuable evidence to help shape our thinking. We expect to be able to share more on the future operating model for events in early 2022.
Improving our service to customers
We will continue to find innovative ways to allow us to progress casework fairly and robustly.
Over the course of the pandemic we have developed virtual events to manage the social distancing restrictions in place which allowed us to keep our casework moving. We recently published our Annual Report and Accounts for 2020-21 which shows that despite the pandemic, we made around 17,000 recommendations and decisions in England and over 500 in Wales. We held over 700 virtual hearings and inquiries as well as developing a more advanced modelling capability to improve inspector programming, optimising its use of skills and resources. We recognise that the pandemic has increased the challenges we face around timeliness in the delivery of our services and that some customers are experiencing longer waiting times for their decisions as a result. We are taking active steps to address these challenges and deliver service improvements for our customers.
We have continued to redesign our online customer service portals to improve customer experience across our three service areas: appeals, applications and examinations. The recent blog from the Planning Inspectorate’s service improvement team provides a summary of the improvements we are making.
We have also become members of the Institute of Customer Services and have worked with them to gather customer feedback and support us on where we can make further improvements to our services. The path to better customer service starts with listening, understanding and acting on feedback - Planning Inspectorate (blog.gov.uk)