Minutes:
Nick Harding gave an update with regard to loss of services was provided by Peterborough City Council. He further reported Nick Tollitt and Angela Watson from Enforcement have left and been replaced with 2 agency workers Martin Brimstone and Charles Swayne. The vacancies are out to advert and Sam Falco is starting in May for Conservation.
Nick Harding reported that PCC no longer supply plan and policy support, ecology, Section 106 viability and management or housing strategy.
Ecology is being provided by Cambridgeshire County Council (CCC). CCC are lending some time with their Ecologist with the advent of biodiversity net gain and the plan is to share a post between the 2 councils, but this is not finalised yet and will involve a budget increase which will need approval. Every authority is impacted by biodiversity as there is a nationwide shortage of Ecologists.
The proposal for S106 viability/monitoring and Policy & Housing Strategy is being reviewed and costings are being put to FDC Management Team and will then go to Committee for approval. Opportunities for working with other authorities explored but not viable. It is hoped to continue using Mike Freeman on Section 106 as a casual employee but just awaiting approval on this. There is a plan for inhouse housing strategy to help with future projects.
Nick reported there is a 21-day backlog. Each week a validation backlog update is provided on the Council’s web site: https://www.fenland.gov.uk/article/15139/Planning-process This is provided on a weekly update as to how things are faring on the backlog, there are several people taking leave so this is expected to get worse. Agency enforcement staff are being trained in order that they can undertake some of the tech admin so the officers can catch up on validation. It is too early in the transformation process for ay time to be saved with regards to improved workflow which can be reinvested into the validation process and it is appreciated that a 3-week backlog are not satisfactory.
Councillor Mrs Laws stated the volume of applications coming in has not decreased and there are still applications that need rejecting and this can be time consuming. Nick Harding commented the number of applications has been steady and the Council has not seen any drop off in application rates. Work has just started on the performance of agents, how progress is going on applications being submitted which will help officers strengthen applications and returning them. Councillor Mrs Laws asked if this can be put in a spreadsheet and circulated.
Nick presented the planning application performance:
Planning Applications
Major - 77%
Minor - 61%
Other - 81%
There is concern about performance on minor applications and this has been flagged at the last scrutiny meeting that looked into planning performance but for the purpose of monitoring by Central Government they look at performance of major applications and non-major applications and as a result the non-major applications are failing to reach their target and he has highlighted the fact that unless there is some improvement in performance there is the risk that at Christmas 2023, Fenland could reach the designation by Government for poor performance on non-major applications. There have been many changes with staff leaving and new recruits which slows things down while the cases are being reviewed and new staff are getting up to speed as these are brand new cases for them and this has presented issues and there needs to be a better performance on major applications.
John Maxey made the point that there appears to be an increase in the number of requests from officers who are asking for an extension of time to assist with statistics. Nick Harding responded this is an area that is being investigated and officers are happy to work with the agents if they do not wish to have an extension to put a plan in place. This is something that will be taken up with the Planning Advisory Service to help bring about change to the service and bring the performance levels up.
Tim Slater commented the position of Fenland is by no way unique with ecologists being very difficult to recruit and he is not sure the Planning Advisory team can come up with anything different, it is not an organization failure but recruitment that is the issue, temporary staff can help short term but not for the long-term issue.