Board meeting minutes 16th May 2024 - The Planning Inspectorate
Updated 17 September 2024
Applies to England
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Minutes 16th July 2024 date
| Title of meeting | Planning Inspectorate Board Meetings |
|---|---|
| Date | 16 May 2024 |
| Venue | Virtual |
| Chair | Trudi Elliott (TE), Non-Executive Director |
| Present |
|---|
| Oliver Munn (OM), Non-Executive Director |
| Emir Feisal (EF), Non-Executive Director |
| Adrian Penfold (AP), Non-Executive Director |
| Paul Morrison (PM), Chief Executive |
| Joanne Butcher (JB), Chief Finance Officer |
| Graham Stallwood (GS), Chief Operating Officer |
| Rachel Graham (RG), Chief Digital Information Officer |
| Hayley Kelly (HK), Chief People Officer |
| Richard Schofield (RS), Chief Planning Inspector |
| In attendance |
|---|
| Full meeting |
| Executive Support and Governance Officer (DP), minutes and actions |
| DLUHC Sponsorship Team (RW), (sub for Charlotte Spencer) |
| Head of Strategy and Change (SH), (sub for Chief Strategy Officer) |
| Attending for specific items |
| Head of Business Improvement and Stakeholder Management (LB) (item 6) |
| Customer Insights Lead (ZC) (item 6) |
| Senior Media and External Affairs Manager (GL) (item 6) |
| Strategy and Corporate Governance Lead (BM) (item 7) |
| Head of Finance (PO) (item 8) |
| Futures Lead (NPo) (item 9) |
| Apologies |
|---|
| Charlotte Spencer (CS), Leasehold Land and Planning Delivery Director, DLUHC |
| Sean Canavan (SC), Chief Strategy Officer |
| Madeleine Burch (MB), Non-Executive Director Boardroom Apprentice |
| Observer |
| Planning Inspectorate (JD), Policy Advisor & Sponsorship Lead (DLUHC) |
1. 1.0 - Welcome and Declaration of Interests
1.1 The Chair called for Declarations of Interest, of which there were none.
2. 2.0 - Minutes of March Board meetings and corporate action tracker
2.1 No further comments or amendments received for the part one or part two March Board minutes.
2.2 No further updates received for the action tracker.
Agreed:
2a) The part one and part two minutes of the March Board are approved and an accurate record of the meeting.
3. 3.0 Audit and Risk Assurance Committee update and report to the Board
3.1 The Health, Safety and Wellbeing audit received a substantial opinion, the Committee recognised the work of the team.
3.2 As part of the National Audit Office (NAO) update to the Committee, the financial expenditure on the Temple Quay House (TQH) lease was discussed.
3.3 Two final internal audits were received, the data quality audit received moderate assurance and the IR35 audit received substantial assurance.
Actions:
3a) JB to circulate the data quality and IR35 audit reports to the Board.
4. 4.0 Chief Executive’s (CEO) update to the Board – OFFICIAL SENSITIVE
4.1 Recorded in the part two minutes.
5. 5.0 Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) update to the Board
5.1 Since the last Board the main developments have been around the Levelling Up and Regeneration Act (LURA) implementation, local planning authority (LPA) designations and street vote development orders (SVDOs).
5.2 From the 2nd April, Biodiversity Net Gain has become mandatory for new applications for non-major development.
5.3 On the 25th April, the enforcement measures in the LURA came into effect subject to transitional arrangements.
5.4 On the 30th April, the second tranche of compulsory purchase reforms came into force.
5.5 Lewis District Council was designated on the 8th May for their quality of decision making on major applications. Fareham Borough council was de-designated on the 26th March as performance has improved within the threshold.
5.6 SVDOs working at pace to lay the first set of affirmative regulations in early June. Thank you to the Inspectorate for engagement with the project.
6. 6.0 Stakeholders and Customers engagement
6.1 The headlines of the stakeholder survey are good news, the role of the Inspectorate is well understood and the vast majority of stakeholders agree we work to our values, customer focus is lacking in comparison, three quarters say our work is of high quality and there is appetite for news on casework as well as government changes.
6.2 Over 400 comments provided, GL is working through these and themes are emerging. Next steps are to act and follow up at ab insight meeting, giving feedback to our stakeholders that took time to provide feedback. The Communications team is putting together a content plan, this will support ambitions two and three of our strategic plan.
6.3 The Customer/ end user is our biggest stakeholder, we are capturing the voice of the customer at different junctures. The survey will be issued via a new Microsoft form from the end of June and that will tell us mid-journey and post decision how customers are feeling through the process. The Customer team is also capturing post decision queries and feedback and looking at how we connect to our values.
6.4 The customer survey also offers the option to opt in and become part of a consumer action group, focus group or take part in a panel discussion.
6.5 There is lots of important intel and insight coming from the stakeholder and customer surveys. Next step is looking at a more systematic way of sharing the insight, acting with the relevant people to find resolution, share how we are working with feedback and making improvements through a cross functional team in the organisation.
6.6 OM reflected the number one frustration is knowing when a decision will be issued, that can be resolved by showing the stages. RG confirmed a data scientist will be working with GS and team to show the time taken in part of the process, this work is underway and included in the digital and data workload. There are tools being developed that will help customers to know where they are in the process and how long things will take.
6.7 AP asked if it is possible to have a breakdown of stakeholders into groups and see the responses by group. AP is pleased to hear we are feeding back, this demonstrates customer focus and the more we can do with feedback the better. ZC explained the new survey will provide a self-selection option to collect feedback from as many groups as possible. This will also be broken down by service used. ZC is looking at how we keep customers informed, through conversations with Operation Leads and the Data team.
6.8 TE asked when the board will see the data. ZC will have the customer post service data and will present at the July Board, if the June survey launches on time this will also be included.
6.9 PM said we need to compress decision times and move closer to the target. RG explained an open digital LPA community for the planning system has been established and will be working together to understand the pain points between the organisations.
Actions:
6a) ZC to present customer survey data to the July Board.
6b) TE to include reference to the customer and stakeholder survey in the Board blog, with a further more detailed news item coming from GL, ZC and LB.
6c) TE to read RS blog and liaise with LB for blog drafting.
7. 7.0 Balanced scorecard
7.1 The new format of the scorecard was presented, this included demand forecast for all the services which shows intake vs demand.
7.2 Intake vs demand forecast for appeals show we received just above the forecast, 5% more. We received the same number of Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects (NSIPs) as forecast and just under forecast for local plan (LP) submissions.
7.3 Performance against the mission, the decision times on planning written representations is under the baseline of 26 weeks and reporting green. Planning hearing and inquiry appeals are reporting red due to median hearing decision times at 40 weeks and is 15% higher than the baseline. Inquiries are amber and just above the rolling average of pervious months which is the baseline. However, this measure now includes enforcement and specialist appeals which are the older cases in the system. Focussing solely on planning hearing and inquiry cases, performance is reporting green.
7.4 As we reduce the number of older cases in the system we expect performance to fluctuate.
7.5 NSIP cases continue to be decided in the statutory timetable.
7.6 LP examinations for quarter four is reporting red. This is due to a significant increase to average number of days used to examine strategic plans. However, the data for this period includes a very complex plan which took a large number of days.
7.7 Customer measures show the number of upheld complaints against decisions issued, is just above the quality benchmark of 1%. This increased slightly which is due to a build-up of enquiries whilst the onboarding of new staff took place.
7.8 Complaints v decisions issued, this measure shows an increase of 14% compared to the quality benchmark of 8%. This is due to more accurate reporting and recording of upheld complaints, which was not previously recorded in the system.
7.9 OM asked for feedback from GS on the actual vs flightpath measures reporting green, red and amber. GS explained this is due to a range of factors affecting the flightpath. April includes Easter where there is a slight delay and local elections which impacts on inquiry performance for a short period. The data for May is showing a high productivity month.
7.10 TE asked about the impact of enforcement and specialist cases, is there anything else impacting performance. GS explained planning hearings for April median is 27 weeks. As we continue clearance of enforcement hearing cases and tree preservation cases this has impacted the measure. With continual focus on older cases throughout the year the measure may become red.
7.11 Local plan data will continue to flag red due to the variability and complexity of plans.
7.12 AP said graphs will be more helpful than red, amber, green ratings as it will give the sense of direction of travel. BM agreed to review and add data points to the flightpaths.
7.13 TE asked if there will be any impact on our performance due to the election period and impact of the pre-election period. GS explained conversations are taking place to make sure we understand and manage the impact on the work in operations.
Actions:
7a) BM to plot the data points for the flightpaths.
7b) GS to work with BM and team to monitor the flight path measures.
7c) BM to add the number of Local Plans in the system. ### 8.0 Budget update – OFFICIAL SENSITIVE
8. 8.1 Recorded in the part two minutes.
9. 9.0 Future preparedness
9.1 Recorded in the part two minutes.
10. 10.0 Forward Look, review of the meeting, blog key points
Actions:
10a) TE to draft the blog, TE to pick up with NP on messaging around futures preparedness, stakeholder and customer and key outputs from the balanced scorecard.
10b) JB and TE to pick up on budget and a conversation with AY on areas of focus from the department.
10c) GS to send TE a note of successes from the blog.
10d) PM to look at the work on scenario planning, spending review and recommend where we factor into future work programme. What comes to the Board or refer to ARAC for preparation work.