KPIs in Local Planning Authorities: Are the planning bean counters causing more trouble than they are worth?

As you all know, there are constant league tables that are published to count things to do with planning… Ranking Councils for their performance or lack of performance and these tables have some bite… if you don’t hit your targets, you get into serious trouble with DCHLG or even worse, you get a stern letter from the Minister and could end up in special measures. 

Now, don’t get me wrong, I do think things should be monitored and I do think the Government is completely right to step in where Councils don’t perform… but sometimes the bean counting can be counterproductive. Disastrously so. 

Let me give you an example: A planning department in the home counties, headed up by a person (who will remain anonymous) whom I certainly would consistently rate as one of the top five LPA planning officers in the country. This person is very pragmatic and their approach is consistent – they work with the applicants to get the application to a point where they are comfortable that their recommendation for approval is water-tight, so that when their committee does something stupid like refuse it on flimsy grounds like “we are democratically elected and voted against this and don’t need to give reasons for our decision” the inspector won’t have much trouble in approving it. 

We have worked closely (and successfully) with this LPA on a large number of applications and they have on occasion worked for four years on a major application to get it to committee. 

I was therefore very surprised to find out this week that they have closed down the discussion on a site (while the applicant was still in dialogue and providing additional information) and are going to refuse the application. So I called this excellent LPA officer and enquired what had happened. 

The answer was somewhat disconcerting. The bean counters counted and found that they are taking too long to determine their major applications, and they have been wrapped over the knuckles by our bean counter friends at DCHLG. They need to drastically improve sticking to the time limits or otherwise they are going to be in serious trouble. 

The upshot of this is that they now have to refuse applications rather than work collaboratively to get to mutual consent. Now, I know as well as you know that the bloody bean counters will soon be on their case about losing too many appeals. 

So, the question is, where do you draw the line? Is it worth missing the deadlines for determination if you are working towards a positive outcome or should we stick to the superimposed determination deadlines? 

Personally, I am erring on the side of “let’s work together and resolve the issues and get to a positive outcome” rather than rushing it and spending more money on unnecessary appeals. 

What do you think?

Until next week,

Henry 

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