 Mr Fulton should be with us now. Okay, Chair, you're now live. Thank you. Thank you very much, Liam. Well, good afternoon everyone and welcome to this meeting of the Scrutiny and Overview Committee. My name is Grenville Chamberlain and I'm the Chair of the Scrutiny and Overview Committee. May I just run through a few brief points of housekeeping for the meeting just before we start? Could I remind you to please make sure that your device is fully charged or is charging? Please switch off your microphone and I invite you to speak. I shall try to remember to do the same and not, therefore, create background noise. But when you finish speaking, please turn off your microphone immediately. Please speak slowly and clearly and do not talk over or interrupt anyone. And if you wish to speak on an item, please indicate this using a chat function which the Vice-Chair will be managing for. Present online with the other following members of the Scrutiny and Overview Committee who I will invite to introduce themselves. Members, after I've gotten your name, please turn on your microphone and introduce yourself so that we may note your presence. Please remember to turn your microphone off after your introduction. So can I start with Councillor Anna Bradman, please? Good evening. My name is Councillor Anna Bradman and I'm one of the members for Milton and Water Beach Board. Thank you, Anna. Councillor Martin Kahn. Hello, I'm Councillor Martin Kahn, one of the members for Histon and Pinkton and Orchard Park. Thank you, Martin. Councillor Nigel Kafkaert. Nigel may not be with us, so we'll come to apology shortly. Councillor Sarah Chung-Johnson. Hello, I'm Councillor Sarah Chung-Johnson, one of the members for Long-Standed Warf. Thank you, Sarah. Councillor Graham Cohn. Councillor Graham Cohn. Can you hear me, Chairman? Oh, we can now, Graham. Sorry, yep, it's just a bit of a delay. My name's Graham Cohn. I'm one of the members for the Fendt Ditton and a Full-Born Ward. Thank you, Graham. Councillor Claire Daunton. Yes, hello, good evening. I'm Councillor Claire Daunton, another of the members for the Fendt Ditton and Full-Born Ward. Thank you, Claire. Councillor Peter Fane. Good evening, Peter Fane Shelford Ward. Thank you, Peter. Councillor Joe... Good evening, Chair. Yeah, Councillor Hales for the Melbourne Ward. Thank you, Chair. Councillor Jeff Harvey. Yes, thank you, Chair. Member for Fortion Ward. Thank you, Chair. Councillor Steve Hunt. Thank you, Chair. Steve Hunt, Councillor for one of the Councillors for Histon in Pington and Orchard Park. Thank you, Chair. Councillor Judith Rippeth, who is also my vice-chairman. Good evening. I'm Judith Rippeth and I'm one of the local members for Milton and Water Beach Ward. Thank you, Judith. And finally, Councillor Richard Williams. Thank you, Chair. I'm Richard Williams. I'm the Member for the Whittleson Ward. Thank you, Richard. If any member has to leave during the meeting, could you please let us know so that we can record that. A gender item one is Apologies for Absence. And can I ask democratic services? Do we have any apologies, please? Chairman, we have one apology from Nigel Cathcart. He sent them this morning saying that he probably wouldn't be able to make this meeting. Obviously, if he does turn up, I'll cancel those apologies. Thank you very much, Ian. Okay. Thank you. Item two is Decorations of Interest. Can I ask, do any committee members have any interests that they would like to declare in relation to any item on the agenda, please? I see no hands, so we will move on then to item three, which is the minutes of the previous meeting. And can I ask our members happy to approve the minutes of the previous meeting, which was held on the 25th of February, or are there any matters of accuracy that members would like to raise? I'm happy to approve. Thank you, Anna. Great. If there are no more, then I will sign at some appropriate date. Item four on the agenda is Public Questions. And I am aware that we have a question from Mr. Daniel Fulton. I would therefore invite Mr. Fulton to unmute himself and to ask his question, please. Mr. Fulton. Yes, thank you, Chair. I hope everyone's read the report that I sent in to the committee. It's very unfortunate that I have to be here today to discuss this, but I'm very disappointed in the internal audit services report. As you know, basically we call officers lying to counselors and lying to central government about the council's planning performance. Mr. Fulton, may I ask you please to use appropriate language, and I do not consider that appropriate in any circumstance. I'm sorry, Chair. We caught the council making dishonest state. I'm sorry, Mr. Fulton. I'm not at all content with that type of terminology. Please raise your question with no respect. I apologize, Chair. We caught the council making inaccurate statements to central government and to counselors. We brought this attention to the head of paid service in the form of a complaint. That complaint has not been answered almost two months after it's been sent in. I don't doubt the head of paid service commitment to upholding high standards, but I do question whether or not she has sufficient support from elected counselors. We then brought this our concerns to the executive counselor for planning who agreed for the internal audit service to investigate the issue. Three months later, the report was released and it does not evaluate the council's planning performance returns against the objective standard that has been published by the Secretary of State and approved twice in 2018 and 2020 by the House of the Parliament. I do not understand why the council, I mean, I do know why the council doesn't want to do this because the council wants to avoid being designated as an underperforming local planning authority. But in my view, it is not okay for the council to ignore the law and to make inaccurate representations about its planning performance. Do you have a question that you wish to pose to the council? I do, yes. Can you please pose your question? My question today is why did the council decide not to follow the objective reporting criteria and definitions published by the Secretary of State and approved by both Houses of Parliament? Thank you. Thank you very much for your question, Mr. Fulton. I shall now invite Councillor Tumay Hawkins, who is the lead member for planning to reply. Thank you, Chair, and good evening, everyone. In response to Mr. Fulton's question, what I will say is this, that the plan authority submissions to MHCLG on its performance have been made in accordance with the up-to-date requirements for all local planning authorities as set out in the MHCLG's live tables. These tables provide the source data to the government's performance designation criteria. And the approach to counting extensions of time at the heart of this issue is nevertheless different between the two documents. And the council's approach complies with the definitions in the live tables. And is it with published guidelines by the planning advisory service? However, as a result of the concerns which were expressed and noting that the advice between the government's publication and the government's live tables is different, since 2021, our service has already changed its approach to reporting performance to address this difference in how the agreed extensions of time are treated. And I would say this, finally, that the shared planning team have also already responded to the recommendations of the internal audit report to address areas for assurance and actions. Thank you. Thank you very much, Councillor Hawkins. Mr. Fulton, I thank you for your question and I would invite you now to please leave the meeting, but you are free to continue to watch if you would choose to do so using the live stream. Thank you very much for your interest. Good evening. Chair, excuse me, I just noticed chat has turned off for this meeting on my laptop, which will make the recording speakers quite difficult. Could it be turned back on? Can Liam help us with that, please? Hi there, yeah, I'm just looking into it. I myself don't actually organise the meetings, I just run them. Victoria, Victoria, are you able to access that? I'm just trying to see if I can now. I will try to in the background. I believe it's turned on, but I'll go and double check the settings. I hope it's not my laptop, which is playing up. No, it's the same for me as well. Okay, check. I think in the meantime, we can continue with item five, which is the planning performance update, and I'd like to invite Councillor Chimie Hawkins to present the report, please. Chimie. Thank you once again, Chair. Now, obviously this report is before you because of the, I guess, the claims that were made by the previous speaker about the performance data statistics that we submitted to the MHCLG. And in that respect, I agreed that we would have an internal audit on just a quarter to submission. And as you will find in the report, firstly, the audit focused on reviewing how the PS2DATE figure is calculated, and then looked at the quality of the supporting information that was used to make the calculation. Now, obviously, extensions of times are allowed by government, and the idea is that if an application could not be determined within the statutory 8, 13, or 16 weeks, then if it's agreed by the applicant, there will be an extension of time to enable the council to determine that application. Now, I won't go into sort of details because there's there, and there will be time to look at that, but the analysis shows that submission to MHCLG is correct. The report shows there is room for improvement in how the data is recorded. And I think what I will do at this point is to hand over back to yourself, Chair, and take questions. I've got Mr. Kelly here with me, Joint Director of Planning and Economy, and he can help to answer more detailed questions, which are operational, which he will appreciate. I may not be able to answer. Thank you. Thank you very much, Councillor Hawkins. Members, do you have any questions, please? I can't see anything in the chat at all. Councillor Hunt. Thank you, Chair. Yes, so thank you to the officers for the report, which is very pleasingly, I thought, concise and easy to read and with a nice glossary of terms for people who aren't totally immersed in this stuff all the time. So thank you for that. And I'm very much welcome the proposed improvements to process and workflow to make sure that stuff is recorded in a more consistent way going forward. I think that's practical good stuff to do in the short term. What I'd really like to see in the long term, to the extent one can in planning law and so forth, to have this stuff managed in something like a CRM or a ticketing system so that process infractions are actually not possible. So that for something to move to being approved DOT, you have to have filled out the justification. You have to have filled out the date, the right people have to have approved it. I think that's the way to make this stuff really watertight over time and also easy to generate reports about because then you haven't got stuff scattered around in different systems and perhaps in emails and so forth. That was my comment, Chair. Thank you. Thank you, Steve. Perhaps before I invite Councillor Hawkins to respond, we could perhaps take another question and group the two of them together. So the next one comes from Councillor Martin Khan. One of the issues we were discussing in the pre-meeting, which I thought was the difference between the two forms of advice that were given, the one which is the MCLHG advice and the one asking for planning performance statistics. Now they're not necessarily the same thing. One is a legal document which says that you should do your notification before the end of the year of extension before the end of the period. The other is one is trying to get data to present to the public. Now what worries me is that there may be different interpretation between different local authorities about this. We may adjust our reporting to one type, but other authorities maybe are doing it differently. I think it's very important to know how figures reported in other authorities to get some context. Are they all using the same system like we have been using? Or are they forming, complying to the more strict criteria? Because if there is a mixture in different authorities, it rather means that the data that we're getting are very misleading. So Mr Fortin has actually produced something which is quite useful in terms of the fact that there may be a problem here nationally. So what should we be doing about this? I've been asking what we should be doing about this. Should we be trying to get more information with the context on a national scale? Sorry, Chair. Jonathan Talley is asked to speak because he might be able to answer the questions before they're asked. I think that's the point. Hello, everyone. Thank you. Chair, you're on mute. Yes, thanks. Thank you. I was going to come back to Tumi, but perhaps we'll go to Jonathan first and then come back to Tumi. Chair, I'm happy for Jonathan to talk through his report and hopefully clarify some of the things that are there. And I'm sure those will answer some of the questions that have actually been asked. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Jonathan, over to you. Thank you very much, Chair. And good afternoon, everyone. It's good to be here. So yes, I thought it would just be good to take the opportunity to chat through some aspects of the reports and provide a little bit more detail from our own internal audit perspective, if that's OK. So I mean, I welcome the immediate feedback that is very clear and easy to read, but I can perhaps just provide a few more details in some areas where it's useful. Our approach was to quite a few different perspectives. I mean, we recognize the point about the difference and interpretation of standards, and perhaps that might be a question which comes up later on, but what we wanted to get to the detail of was the data that we had to hand accurate, because irrespective of what approach is taken, we need to make sure that is correct and we've got confidence in that data. So we took quite a few different approaches. First of all, we looked at the live tables and web pages which are maintained by NHCLG themselves. So this is the data which is publicly reported, and that helps us to understand the data which we need to reconcile information back to. We then looked at the guidance, which is known as PS1 and PS2 guidance, which gives instructions and capturing the data. This illustrates what data is needed and the different fields, the different input fields. So it's quite complicated there. So we wanted to look at that to get assurance that we're classifying data correctly. We also looked at guidance issued from the Planning Advisory Service, and the Planning Advisory Service is a local government association body which is funded by NHCLG themselves for the role of providing guidance to local councils. So they've got guidance and frequently asked questions on completing these PS2 returns. So it made good sense to cross-reference to those as well. We looked at the uniform planning system and any supporting manuals and guidance that accompanied it. And what we saw was that it contains fields used for recording further information about extensions of time, such as why they've been extended and why determinations were delayed. It might be for different reasons. So we felt there's an opportunity to perhaps make use of these fields because there could be a variety of different reasons for not meeting the standard determination dates and for requesting extensions of time. It could be, we recognise risks could be poor performance. It could be because the customer's not always provided the information that we need to hand. Amendments might be required, or there could be external factors, and we've seen things like COVID-19 where site visits have been delayed and meetings have been cancelled. So we feel that recording and analysing this information could help management to focus on the areas which could be improved, and potentially that could be more powerful and useful data than just simply saying, well, something just done on time. We also looked at the document management system. So the document management system is where copies of the extension of time agreements are kept. And this links back to the public access system where the public can view documents. So we noticed that some documents were uploaded, but they were marked as sensitive, which consequently meant they were not publicly viewable. Some documents were coded differently within the system with lots of different codes. That made it very difficult to sort of trap them back. So anything which can improve the standardised coding within that part of the system can help improve the public access records. So we've made recommendations around that area. Now also we've reviewed the format and approach used for extensions of time. Now while there is no prescribed format for doing this, we did feel that there was an opportunity to tighten up this area and perhaps introduce some templates for actually communicating with applicants to agree extensions of time. Now this is, again, it reflects good practice guidance from the Planning Advisory Service. And so we would recommend that the team considers doing that and integrating it into their current processes. So the PA has quite helped provided a couple of examples and I would think would make good sense to use those. We also re-performed calculations and we felt this is a very important area because it's one that we'd not looked at before. So it's a very, very complicated process collating these statistics. So data comes from the Planning System into an access database via various queries. So we felt it was important to independently validate and recalculate that data to make sure that that process was robust. Because that could be another area where things were not working properly. So we did that and we found that, as I've mentioned in my report, that say for one record we could re-perform that data satisfactorily. What was also very important for us was looking at the supporting information which helped us get assurance that there were actually extensions of time agreements in place with customers. So in this area we were looking for literally find examples that correlated to the statistical data. And for the most part from the sample we did find supporting records but there were some cases where we didn't. In that instance we referred it back to the Planning Team to try and identify why this was. In most cases it looks like it's administrative errors. Either the document was on the system but marked as sensitive not public or it was in sort of workflow and it hadn't been uploaded onto the document management system as yet. So that's helped us to actually identify most of those records which we couldn't find originally. And where we have a small difference left over we would recommend that during the next update to MHCLG it might be good to actually update the statistics to reflect those records. And that's perfect acceptable and the MHCLG make provision for that within their processes. What I do feel that are leading on from that it would be good as part of the workflow process just to make sure there's a check and a balance and to make sure these documents have been uploaded to the system because it would make good sense to make sure these records are there and it's just an administrative check. Something that's very, very easy to overcome I feel. So in our conclusion you can see in the report I think we've given it limited assurance and we recognise that there's definitely scope for improvement and I think we're pleased to see that the planning team is already making steps to review their processes and implement controls in this area. So we're pleased to note that they've taken that on board. So I hope that's some useful background information report but I'm happy to answer any questions which you have. If there are ones with more technical nature I might bring Stephen in as well to support with that. But thank you. Jonathan, thank you very much. And I think in introducing your report you've actually answered Councillor Hunt's question. I'm not sure whether you fully answered Councillor Collins. Martin, is the part of your question that was not answered? Yes, in a sense because what I'm concerned there is I'm happy about the proposals for improved procedures. I think it's absolutely a very valuable process to do that. What worries me is how our figures are recorded are presented by government. The success in terms of doing it within the deadline. The question was made about whether those applications, whether extension times you need after the deadline should be counted as acceptable or not. That's an interpretation between difference between the past and the MCLSG regulations that were presented before Parliament. I think it's important to know how other authorities are presenting it, how we're being compared, because that will affect how we've been seen. What government expects of us should be insist on making sure that every extension of time is agreed before the deadline. Do we need to worry a great deal about ones which are agreed afterwards? It may be simply that we've agreed in principle but we haven't signed it beforehand. But there's a great potential confusion and there could be a lot of confusion that's been hidden in the past, which we don't know about. I just wondered whether information has been provided on this, what the responsive past was, whether we know how we stand on a national level. I think that could be a very interesting thing. It might be a minefield that has been exposed, but I think it could be very interesting. Do you have a response on that? Do you see it? Councilor Hawkins, did you wish to take that or would you like to pass that one over? I think this probably will be one where I will ask both Stephen and Jonathan to comment, but what I will say is this. As I said, we have begun to actually implement the procedure whereby we make sure that extensions of time are agreed before the end of the statutory period and recorded. I think if you go on the planning website now you will see that document on there with each application that has an extension of time. I will ask through you chair Stephen to comment at this point. Thank you, Councilor Hawkins. The issue is certainly in taking soundings. Obviously we have spoken to Paz who say this issue hasn't really been raised and they're not aware of a big national debate around it but certainly talking to former authorities where I have been they follow the very similar practice to South Cambridge District Council in terms of how we have recorded it and certainly were of the view that they counted extensions of time in line with the Paz guidance and indeed in line with the live table requirements up until the point of a capable of being sought up until the point of a decision and so I haven't seen substantial evidence one way or the other. The important point probably to make is as Councilor Hawkins has highlighted in many respects the live tables and the designation criteria that all the designation decisions of government that hang from them are matters of record now and so our reference point regarding other authorities in terms of relative performance it is a matter that we think is less significant than our current assurance around the process that we're now following that puts our position beyond any doubt clearly we can't audit all 367 local planning authorities data and I'm sure you wouldn't expect us to do so and therefore it's difficult to say would our performance sit differently in those kind of tables I think the most important matter is and the service is doing following on from Jonathan Tully's report is for those cases where there is a where Jonathan has highlighted that he couldn't find evidence of the extension of time being agreed we are reviewing each of those files including also confirming because in some cases officers have left with agents their understanding and if there is a difference then in that performance then we would propose to clarify that based on the work done we don't think there is a material impact on the council's performance but obviously if that does arise we will update MHCLG accordingly it's worth bearing in mind though that the threshold for designation and indeed the actual designation of authorities is a different consideration so a number of authorities have performance below the designation criteria but have not been designated and so it doesn't follow that the provisions of designation apply automatically and clearly if we update our table and MHCLG wish to consider whether or not South Cam's performance falls within that category then obviously they will contact us and advise us but we don't believe that will be the case at this moment in time and Sharon Brown and the team are going through those measures just to provide that absolute assurance about the figure that we submitted. You're on mute chair. Thank you my apologies Councillor Hull would like to come back Steve. Thank you chair Noah the information I was going to look for has already been spoken about so thank you. That's fine thank you very much so we move now to Councillor Coe Brian Thanks very much chairman I apologise in advance my internet connection is a bit dodgy at the moment it keeps dropping in and out so my question was on page 18 of the supplement document that we have sent round and the agenda pack and where it talks at the top of the paragraph and extensions of time made after the determination date and the planning advisory service that paragraph at the top there and obviously what's happened there is information has been pulled from the what appears sort of it's been pulled from the website to sort of bolster the argument there but the texts in italics between those two paragraphs there's when you go on the actual website there's a lot of information but between that that hasn't been included and so for example on the website and I wondered that there is a lot of information there so maybe it can't all be included but one bit that I thought was relevant and that I've underlined on there on the website is that local authority should ensure that they have robust procedures in place to ensure that if any application seems likely to require additional time to reach a satisfactory outcome the case officer takes the earliest opportunity to discuss the situation with the applicant and an extension of time is agreed so I mean it's not there as well but things like that I wondered if you're going to pull certain paragraphs out of the planetary service website maybe that should all be included on there and that was my question should that all be included thank you Graham before we come to an answer let's take Councillor Faines as well and then we can deal with the two at the same time so Peter thank you chair question directed at Mr Tully relates directly to the internal audit report this has highlighted that there are two sets of criteria Peter you're frozen purposes of the returns which is slightly different and which allows for extensions of time to be submitted after the deadline but before determination so two questions for Mr Tully the first is did you in your can you direct your questions to the lead for planning in the first instance please perhaps the lead for planning would like to answer a question that relates directly to the report that we are considering which was written by the internal audit the first is two questions please the first is whether the internal audit report considered those circumstances where an extension of time was agreed after the time had elapsed second it is alleged that extensions of time are sometimes given as what is called a quid pro quo that is the the condition is that the if the extension is agreed to then the planning consent which is being sought the legal document will be released that appears to be supported in one case by an email attached is that the case has that been the case in the past that extensions of time have been granted as a quid pro quo for the granting of planning permission those two questions first of all to councillor Hawkins can you deal first of all with councillor Cohn's question and then subsequently councillor Faines please yes sure thank you chair now I think councillor Cohn whilst I take your point about you know pulling in information from the past website I think you will agree that if we make reference to a document the last thing you want to do is fill your own report with all of it and what has been done in this case is to pull out what we considered was relevant to the discussion at hand now obviously we in fact I think the bit that you read out is something that we already are doing making sure that extensions of time are agreed before the statutory period ends and the proof of that is already on the website as I said earlier on so I hope that answers your question with regards to the work that was done by the internal audit I will refer to Mr Tolly to answer the first one about whether or not extensions of time after the statutory period of time were considered with the second question from councillor Fein about Quid pro quo I will ask Mr Kelly to answer that because it's an operational issue thank you chair. Jonathan would you deal with that first one please thank you chairman so yeah you raised a good question and a good point about that so we did analyse that as best we could and we sort of draw sort of the reader's attention to that on I suppose page 17 of your supplementary pack where we do sort of note that there is a difference between applications within an original determination dates and then applications of extensions we do try and illustrate that picture but I think when we were undertaking our analysis something that became clear to us is that there were occasions where there were multiple extensions of time and that's extremely permissible that's perfectly fine but it makes it very very difficult to undertake that analysis based on the data we had because you've got multiple checkpoints within the process that individual application where it would be very easy to just take an end date and a beginning date between it makes it very very tricky so it doesn't tell the whole story but we've also we've recognised that as a concern and to help management performance with that we've drawn attention to that in our report for improvements thinking is it possible to record the multiple stages for these extensions of time if they happen more than once within the system because that would enable us to do that sort of local management reporting and get that sort of insight so hopefully that answers that question Thank you very much Jonathan so I come to Stephen Kelly if you kindly take the second part of Council Fane's question please. Thank you chair I think that Council Fane was referring to an email that was sent to members or copied to members in which the officer had identified the need for agreement of a change in the description of the application and an extension of time in order to release the decision and I think it's important to bear in mind why extensions of time happened Jonathan Tully advised that but it's part of a process of aiming to assist our residents and developers and applicants to secure an approval of planning permission that's the purpose is that acceptable development is approved and so oftentimes applications change and evolve during their life so that the description of the proposal for example some people apply for a two-story side extension and rear extension and the description changes because the rear extension is not acceptable so I think it's difficult to draw a conclusion I realised that some people have done so that planning commissions are effectively being traded in exchange for extensions of time the reality is that planning permission if we don't issue a decision regardless of whether it's in time or out of time and there is no agreement to the extension of the time period can be subject to planning appeals and there is no interest in the planning authority in holding on to planning permissions pending agreements the objective is to process and determine planning applications and let me tell you with planning officers having caselows that are quite substantial they are very keen to when they can issue decisions get the decisions out see the development happen and remove those applications from their intray so I don't believe that the suggestion that has been made by third parties that planning permission is being traded for an extension of time is appropriate I mean Sharon Brown who manages the delivery team may well wish to comment but I think the circumstances in which extensions of time are sought and agreed with applicants and with their blessing are wide and varied as Jonathan has highlighted and during that period planning officers have quite extensive exchanges through emails and so on with applicants in some cases the informality of the email exchange that has been copied reflects or implies in some readings at some form of ransom but that certainly is not my reading of it and I don't believe it is the practice of the planning service I don't know if Sharon Brown will wish to comment Sharon would you like to comment on this? Yes please chair thank you I would support what Stephen Kelly has just said in terms of my overview of the planning service and in particular the development management teams in my experience the extensions of time are secured to assist the applicants and to improve the quality of the applications and in many ways to help the applicants to secure an approval at the end of that process in particular where there will be responses from technical consultees where further information is required or there may be changes to applications that are required as well so as Stephen has said case officers are very keen to determine applications within the time period where they can but as you know their role is also to assemble the responses that they get back through the consultation period to coordinate with the applicants and planning agents and then to make out of that process deliver the best quality development that they can secure from that thank you chair thank you chair the next question comes from councillor jose hails jose thank you chair through you to lead member for planning if I may councillor Hawkins having received the report and distance officers this evening answering questions and talking about the actual report itself in the process I find myself extremely grateful to both Mr Kelly and Mr Tully in the first place and obviously the wider team for all of the work they've done on this particular subject and obviously continue to do so in our name I just wonder whether Mr Kelly and Mr Tully through you councillor Hawkins will better pass on this committee's sincere thanks for the amount of work that they have done on our behalf thank you chair councillor Hawkins are you happy so to do yes indeed chair thank you councillor Hills we come now to I think councillor Richard Williams thank you very much chair there's a few points I want to go through the first thing I want to just address what a director question is about the quid pro quo issue that councillor Peter fein just raised now the planning advisory service website includes a document called decisions positive planning questions and answers on agreements to extend the time for decision now in that document and a question for when should an extension of time agreement be made it says the following clearly the active word is agreement it will be good practice for an approach to agree an extension of time to be a process of negotiation between the council and the applicants rather than a unilateral request now for good or real it may be typical it may not be typical but we were shown an email where there was a unilateral request which didn't seem to fit with that best practice guidance so I think it would have been helpful because it may have been a one-off but there may have been lots of reasons why it can be explained away but it would have been useful if that had been looked into and the committee could have been given some guidance as to whether that was indeed a one-off or whether that was indeed a routine because it doesn't comply with that guidance so I would like to ask why why that didn't happen on the more general point again my key points range around page 18 of the supplement and those two paragraphs well actually there's one other point just to start off I think we should note in this committee that what this document shows is that 57% an absolute number 57% of the 296 applications considered in this period were only decided after an extension of time was agreed after the statutory determination date that's a majority of applications considered in this period the extension of time agreement was only agreed after the end of the statutory determination date so that's the majority and I don't think we should ignore that and I don't think we should gloss over it and it's great if that's not happening anymore and it will be wonderful to see the statistics on that but I don't think we should gloss over but that's actually one of the key things of this report shows anyway so on to page 18 and we've got those two quotes from the past website that cancer Graham Cone mentioned and that's from the document positive planning agreements for the extension of time and it's that document that actually refers you to the Q&A now that paragraph I think is important so going back to what Councillor Hawking said is that the relevant parts of that guidance were replicated I think that paragraph Councillor Conrad is incredibly important when it says local authority should ensure they have robust procedures and essentially that extension of time agreements are made at the earliest opportunity now that clearly suggests that that is before the date of the statutory determination and in fact I would argue quite forcefully that there is actually great consistency between all of the guidance here we've all seen the criteria for designation which use the word should and they say should be in writing should be agreed before the end of the statutory determination date because it's a list now yes quite right the live tables don't include that bit about should be before the statutory determination date but if you look again at the past guidance I would say it's perfectly clear that paragraph Councillor Cone cited suggests it should be at the earliest opportunity now that document as I said refers to the Q&A so going back to the Q&A the Q&A says for the overall credibility of the planning system extensions of time should really be the exception and efforts made to meet the statutory time skill wherever possible they were not the exception in that period they were the majority if you carry on on that document it says that in most cases or an extension of time is best agreed as early as possible in order to provide certainty in most cases this will be before the end of the statutory expiry date so I would suggest that guidance is actually perfectly consistent should does not mean must it's saying it should be before the start of the end of the statutory determination date it's not saying it can never happen but clearly the guidance is saying that should be exceptional it wasn't exceptional in this quarter and I don't think as I say we should ignore that because it poses us the question as to when the exception becomes the norm if the guidance says extensions beyond the determination date should be exceptional but actually the majority of our extensions were agreed after the determination date can we really say that the guidance has been met and I'm not at all sure that we actually can when we're talking about the majority of applications thank you chair councilor Hawkins, councilor Williams thank you for that, councilor Hawkins I'll I think as this is quite a complex question to deal with this one in its own right right okay I think the in terms of the first one which was why was the the example given in the quid pro quo why was that not specifically investigated I will ask Mr. Tolly to answer that but in the meantime I will have a go at the others which is the point that is being made well I've greened extension of time are the earliest opportunity and that it should be an exception not the rule yes that is fine but then you don't always have the perfect situation of circumstances to enable you to do that and I will ask councilor Williams to recall that the quarter that we're talking about was a difficult one and it's you need to take that into account when you're looking at the situation that is before you but you know what I will do is also ask Mr. Kelly to give you a bit more background on why that was a difficult quarter so perhaps Mr. Tolly first please Jonathan if you would be so kind thank you very much so yes to answer the question about why that example wasn't included in our order it's a very simple one is that it was from a different period it wasn't quarter to 30 but I would add it's a fair risk to recognise which is why we've put in our reports that we think it would be good to have a template that guides officers to go through a proper process of agreeing these in a fair way with applicants with one email you don't always see all of the conversation the whole story in isolation but certainly having a template would guide them through the fair and it's a fair risk thank you and if I may through you chair yeah thank you Mr. Kelly we're talking about the situation we had in quarter to which was what January to March thank you quarter to for I think is June to September obviously at that point we had just restarted planning committees we had a black backlog of planning committees you remember they met every two weeks because officers were still in lockdown and quite understandably at the initiation of lockdown the government made clear that only exceptional travel was permitted that ceased we had to cease site visits we had to stop site notices we could not therefore comply with the requirements for placing notices within time periods and applications although they declined continued to flow into the planning service so it is I agree with Councillor Richard Williams that our objective remains to minimise the number of times in which an extension of time is required but and that is a steady commitment from the service but the circumstances in quarter to as the council emerged into its first planning committees for two months having not undertaken any site visits ahead of the ability to ease lockdown arrangements and then the backlog of cases coupled with the access that officers indeed themselves had some of whom were vulnerable some of whom were understandably concerned for their own health and well-being were not typical the service has sought to address and just picking up on Jonathan Tully's now the service has sought to introduce a procedure note around all future extension of time requests in terms of the template and returning to Councillor Hunt's question right at the beginning we are exploring the capacity of the uniform system to be able to essentially manage or flag at circumstances where an application goes past it's permitted it's a baseline statutory determinations date to determine whether or not there is an extension of time to assist the administration and recording of that information and more particularly as Mr Tully has highlighted the uploading of documents on the point in respect of consistency of course the live tables as Councillor Williams will know also includes the criteria for designation but does not include the same criteria for designate for recording extensions of time as as the document that has been referred to but it is and I think it the authority itself has acted in line with the live tables and their statement around designation in the live table and the recording of the data as everyone has said we have adjusted our approach now to ensure that there is no space between the two interpretations and we are now committed as part of the service to bring down wherever we can the use of extensions of time to do that is to refuse every application that isn't immediately acceptable but the feedback that we've had about the use of extensions of time and indeed I wrote to all agents last year suggesting we would cease amending applications was overwhelmingly that their customers our residents and businesses who want to make planning applications would rather extend the period for planning applications determination than for the mere objective of reaching MHCLG performance tables receive refusals of planning commission of course the objective is that we achieve both of those both of those outcomes by having applications that are right first time and acceptable to our communities and to members but that is a that's a a challenging objective to achieve in all cases can I say something very quickly chair thank you chair thank you for those responses of course the quarter to last year was a very bad time and you know it's a shame really we're looking at that quarter not another quarter but can I just say I think actually the argument that it was very difficult and there were reasons why we didn't meet the criteria is better than trying to say that actually the criteria is terribly vague and nobody knows what the criteria are the criteria are clear so I think it's better to say yet there are there are extenuated reasons why we didn't meet them in that quarter we would meet them in other quarters but we recognise there's a problem in that quarter we'll be a much better way of dealing with this than trying to say all the criteria are very very very muddy so in a sense I think that answer was actually addressing probably the real issue thank you we do have a report coming in quarter to 2021 which is not that far away thank you both for that so we come now to councillor Judith Ripeth Judith I wanted to take up on some of the points that have already been raised and to say we seem to have short memories in that this time last year life was very difficult and I think the amount of work that continue to go on is absolutely laudable in some circumstances which were really really hard and according to page 4 the report quarter 2 was actually April 2020 to June 2020 so we were in a really really tough period of the first lockdown in the first pandemic and the second point I wanted to make really was this report manages to be really concise intelligible and yet gives you links so you can go and look in more detail if you so wish and that's just the kind of thing we want coming back when we ask for a report and I just want to commend it really because we've had chapter and verse in detail from the planning officers and I feel like every question has been answered so I'm afraid that wasn't really a question it was just a comment I wanted to make because a year ago everybody was in a really tough place Thank you very much indeed I come now to Councillor Anna Bredman Thank you Chairman my observation was similar to what Councillor Rippith has said previous coordinator of a totally different kind of committee I just wanted to point out that my observation is at that very difficult time what the officers were trying to do was to make it as to maximise the possibility that people were going to get their application dealt with properly and it wouldn't be held up by something that might have caused a problem in other words if the applicant is agreeable to an extension at a later date this is possible and I think that's what the officers were doing they were giving the applicant the opportunity to adjust paperwork such that it would then be more likely to be acceptable at the time it came to be verified so my feeling is this is the officers making every effort to ensure that applications were being dealt with in a state in which they would be more likely to be acceptable and not then putting the applicants to the inconvenience of having it refused or deferred because paperwork was not acceptable so my feeling is that this is the evidence of our officers being as thorough as they possibly could thank you chair Thank you Anna and Councillor Geoff Harvey Geoff Yes, thank you chair I wanted to refer back to the very interesting contribution from Stephen Kelly on the last occasion he spoke because it did sort of point up that really if we were thinking we needed to in some way objectively measure the performance of our planning team compared with those of other local authorities that's actually not really a feasible thing to do because we're not actually dealing with a sort of quantified task in other words on the other side of the fence you have the applicant and whether or not you sort of run out of time in any extension depends on not only the sort of timely processing by our officers because obviously a sort of a kind of a sort of ping-pong dialogue going on between the applicant and the officers and if I suppose typically at the beginning of a sort of period of work people can be quite sort of relaxed about timely responses to emails and then the consequences of that only become apparent when you kind of you're a week away from the data determination and then realise actually cover everything off in the time that's left and I I suppose I have wondered if almost inevitably we're going to end up with a certain number of cases needing an extension if in any sense there's a sort of game going on here whereby I mean I think it's quite common but applicants might sort of start with a sort of application which they think might be acceptable and then sort of see how far they can push the window in terms of introducing things that might be sort of acceptable but are sort of arguable in other words then the applicants might be sort of using the fact that the time pressure is building in order to try and get some movement from the planning officers because they realise they're under pressure so I kind of wonder whether it's almost inevitable that we will have some sort of percentage that run over and I don't think we can put all the blame on our officers because it's actually not an objective task I mean it does depend on the other party Thank you Geoff. Would you like to comment on that Councillor Hawkins? Yes I will thank you just to thank Councillor Bradner and Councillor Repeth for their comments there's a lot of work that has gone on behind the scenes and I know how hard our officers have been working right through the pandemic I think what some might not realise is for that period we actually had to come to an agreement with building control officers to actually help us place site notices because some of them were going out and eventually came to the agreement that when they were out they would place site notices for us so that we could actually get on with the business of determining this application so it has taken not just the planning the DM group but also people from other departments to help us make sure that we were servicing the residents and to the comment made by Councillor Harvey you might recall that Steven mentioned earlier that he had written to agents, it was last year wasn't it I think, to say that we would not be allowing more than one amendment to applications because what they were doing literally was they submit something which could pass but then would rely on us to keep coming back to them to say well can you do this and can you do that when really what they needed to do was submit an application that was full if you see what I mean and of course each time there's an amendment we have to go out to consultation and all that goes with it so part of the process is to tighten up that and I think from what we have reported to you over time the improvements that we have been making to the processes and we continue to do that so that we can actually determine applications as quickly as we can and we also have resource issues because you very well know there is a shortage in the country and we are competing with everyone else to try and get people who are good to come and work with us so yes there is part of that and so have it but it's something that we are addressing and we will make sure that we try to know as much as possible without annoying our customers Thank you very much Councillor Hawkins Councillor Kahn would like to come back and then I've got the leader would like to speak and after that I will wrap this item up so Martin over to you briefly. Okay it's a query really we've now agreed that we're going to make sure that every applicant is notified for a decent extension of time before the deadline normal for the limited extension of time I'm concerned that there is a risk that if we are pressured to always agree before the deadline we will go for a longer time to determine it for security and that it might actually delay the treatment of applications rather than encourage them. Are there ways of avoiding this risk? Councillor Hawkins I recognise this scenario that you mentioned but bear in mind officers don't want to keep files on their desks trust me with the workload that they have what they want to do is determine an application as quickly as is physically possible for them to do I'll ask if an extension of time is not what they want to do and I'm sure with the guidance of the you know the team managers and the directors we will not be finding ourselves trying to determine it in the longest period of time that's not what we're about to do. Thank you very much I'm going to now come to the leader and then I will wrap up so leader I hope you're still with us I certainly am thank you very much indeed so thank you very much this has been a really interesting discussion so I think this is an outstanding report Junis my thanks to Jonathan Tully in particular I don't often see reports that are so easy to understand and easy to follow which makes such very very clear recommendations so it really is outstanding and I'd like to see all future reports meet up to the standard of this and obviously Stephen Kelly's and Sharon have had significant input into it as well so you know I am very reassured by this report it was never meant to be just saying everything was alright with the submissions to MXCLG you know the strength of it is that it's acknowledged where improvements can be made and the fact that we're reassured now that a lot of those improvements are either in place or in transit now is very very encouraging it's really easy to forget where we were a year ago with the onset of Covid and quite how tough that was that suddenly particularly in planning and development control which was very much off the space suddenly everyone was told to work from home and even though we had all the council everywhere kit all in place I don't think it was more challenging in any service area than it was in planning because officers are used to sitting there with whopping great plans and big maps and big bits of technical equipment to help them in that standing job getting the show back on the road as quickly as they did but it was really really hard and you know a much more difficult for them so we mustn't lose sight of how hard it was then and the fact that it's not a bed of roses now it continues to be really hard under Covid restrictions to run a planning service and I think it's huge credit to all concerned that it is good as it has been and just I want to pick up just on Councillor Harvey's point about you know not laying in the blame for applications that are not determined by the original designation date in time at officers doors so I cannot tell you how many times I have been contacted by applicants invariably agents we're not talking about householders here that my application hasn't been dealt with and when I get down to it the bottom line is they've done a really poor job of submitting their application and there's some stuff missing and they've been chased by our planners who have better things to do than chase up professionals being paid vast sums of money to submit good quality planning applications on behalf of their clients and our website is absolutely clear on what information needs to be submitted with every application so you know it is not it is not the job of our planning officers to do to do the job of the agents working for other people and I think Stephen has taken a very strong stance in the communications he's had with them or the agents over the last year to try and get them to back up their game as well as you know this excellent work by Jonathan Tully which will help us to refine and improve all our processes so thank you again Jonathan and to members of Scooter Neapol the rigorous inspection they've given us today Thank you very much leader and thank you for taking most of what I was going to say I'm very grateful you did it extremely eloquently I'd like to add my thanks to Jonathan for a very detailed report but a very condensed report and to get so much information in just a few pages is something that we've not been particularly accustomed to on Scooter Neapol some of the documents that have come to us have run to a couple of hundred pages so to have something that's concise and precise is very very helpful indeed so thank you to you thanks to Stephen and to Sharon for answering the questions and of course to Councillor Hawkins who has a hand up Yes thank you very much if you'll indulge me it's to officially say thank you to Mr Tully it's been a really outstanding piece of work and yes we have found issues that we need to improve on and frankly that's what we would like to do because our goal, our objective in this planning service is to be the best planning service in the country and the only way we're going to do that is to be open transparent listen to suggestions of improvement and take them on board and do them I also want to say thank you to all the all the DM staff I know the work that has been going on in the past year they're working around you know sponsors who have to work children they have to home school you know some of them are working silly hours trust me silly hours just to make sure that we actually carry on you know providing the service that we have to so my thanks to them all and of course to Mr Kelly and of course Sharon Brown so thank you and thank you to the scrutiny committee for yes picking it apart and letting us know what you think about it I'm sure the next time we come to you could be a much improved service already improving as we have been doing over time so thank you everyone thank you very much I see Councillor Williams has just popped up Richard thank you chair I don't want to be particularly negative but I can't really let this go without saying there are many great great things about the report I know a lot of work has gone into it it is very clearly very well presented but I can't quite let that pass because on page 18 it does say something that I don't think really captures the point about extensions of time it says ideally it would be best if extensions of time could be approved before the original determination date that doesn't really reflect the clear guidance which says they should be exceptional so I do think we need to note that because that is quite an important point I think during the during the discussion that point has been made and I'm sure has been taken on board by our colleagues so I think that is Julie Dunn and noted so thank you for that and we therefore complete agenda item 5 which is the planning performance update so thank you all very much indeed we come to item 6 which is the work program that's set out on pages 7 to 20 as you can see we have a lot of work ahead of us and a degree of uncertainty about how our next meeting may be held if there are any questions on the work program I'm happy to take them but just may I just point out that the future agenda items are provisional and Councillor Rippith and I will get together with our scrutiny officer to determine which order they come forward are there any questions on the work program please none in the chat thank you very much and therefore we come to item 7 which is to note the date of the of our next meeting which is scheduled for Thursday the 18th of May at 20 past 5 now I'm not sure on what state that will be Councillor John Johnson did you wish to come in I just wanted to check when Victoria's last meeting was with us I'm coming to that short Thursday the 18th of May at 5.20 however as things stand at the moment we're not allowed to hold a remote meeting after the 7th of May I'm not convinced that the council officers are ready and available for us so I think we may have to have a degree of flexibility on that Councillor Bradman did you have information on that Chairman thank you I just wanted to say that the officers are in the process of exploring possibilities and looking at ways in which those meetings can carry on there are a number of options that have been explored and have been rehearsed with group leaders and I think as a result of that they will come back with a recommendation as to how to proceed I won't go into the details but there are a number of ways in which we could proceed and they're looking into it so I'm sure I think they will come back to us with how that meeting might proceed Thank you very much for your response to speak Thank you Chair I would be absolutely delighted to come back into face to face meetings when the whole of the democratic process in this country does so at the same time if I am to be subjected to face to face as much as I love you all