1. Re-thinking: Performance & improvement
Martin Hutchings, Planning Advisory Service
Bryony Rudkin, Deputy Leader, Ipswich
March 2018

2. What is PAS? Funded by MHCLG to support English planning authorities
“[PAS] exists to support local planning authorities in providing effective and efficient planning services, to drive improvement in those services and to support the implementation of changes in the planning system”
We also work directly with councils
Part of the Local Government family

3. Today Performance framework in England Good performance – who cares?
What we’ve learned about good performance
What ‘good’ looks like
How to be ‘good’
How committees can help
PAS Support for councils

5. Performance Framework - England
• Councils assessed separately; ‘speed’ & ‘quality’:
speed of determining major applications (target 13 wks)
quality of decisions for major applications
speed of determining non-major applications (target 8 wks)
quality of decisions for non-major development

6. Performance thresholds (speed)
Assessment period; 2 years
%age of decisions made within target time
Non-majors anything less that 70%
Majors anything less than 60%
Quality of decisions: over 10% overturned at appeal
Designation: Sec of State ‘considers council is not performing adequately’
This year – 3 councils ‘caught’ (speed), 5 (quality)
Designation = inspectorate decide planning applications
A bit aboiut how it’s assessed / how it works.

7. Performance: government cares about 8/13 week targets
What matters (the targets)
Gets
measured
Improve =
go faster
Reward / Punishment

8. Performance: what customers care about…
How long from:
‘Can I build?’
‘I can build’
‘When can I build?’
‘I know why I can’t’.

9. A common problem…
“We are excellent at hitting our targets – top quartile consistently – but all we get is poor customer feedback and councillors are always on our backs because of it”. .

10. Customer experience 90 days Can I build? Validation 3 people
We’ll stop if
it isn’t perfect
Lots of computer data to input
Answerphones on
Handed over several times
before officer gets
Committee =
38 hand overs
Application submitted
Application determined
90 days
Validation
36 days
54 days = target met!

11. The problem with focussing on speed
When you call the council, what is more important? That your call is answered quickly, or that the person you talk to can help you and not pass you on?
Unfortunately, many call centres focus on the latter. Delay gets built into the process.
‘someone will call me back – great!’

12. Target ‘culture’ ‘Miss targets & we’re in trouble’
Customer’s ‘interrupt’ us
Call Centre (no direct no’s given out)
Lots of checks; we’re not trusted
Refer everyone to the website
Refuse, withdraw, and use conditions to meet targets
Make decisions at last minute

13. Are you customer or target-driven?
GOOD
BAD
Decisions asap
Last minute

14. What we’ve learned (1) Re-thinking the fundamentals
Understand our purpose (as far as customers are concerned?)
Design processes around purpose
Design performance measurement around purpose
Understand the demands on the service
Service value demand
Eliminate failure demand

15. Case Study What is our purpose? Q: What do our customers want?
A:To grant good development quickly =
PURPOSE

16. Study Demand

17. Demands on the service
Systems thinking diagrams

22. Identify the steps that enable the best development without delay
‘Experiment’ Method
Identify the steps that enable the best development without delay
Demand = Can I build?
Appraise the application
Get the information you need (to make a decision)
Tell the customer they can do it (or why they can’t).

23. Case study… Single story rear extension
Few minutes to appraise - clear something we’d support
Called the applicant (day 1) advised PP was likely in 28 days (21 days statutory consultation, 28 days corporate policy for Members)
They were very pleased, asked a couple of questions
Sent out neighbour notifications – ensure we didn’t break the law
Decision made via on Day 29 – the earliest day currently possible.

24. Results so far… 77 householder applications
Average number of days from first contact to decision being issued for householder applications was 59 days, and with experiment is now 29 days
Agents/applicants are more open to negotiation to improve schemes

25. What we’ve learned (2) Improvement is *not* a project
Councils doing good things:
understand what they’re trying to achieve
always ask ‘why’ before ‘what’ and ‘how’
empower staff
part of the day job
With strong principles – the ‘practice’ is incidental. Create your own ‘good practice’.

26. The perfect process…?
Decisions made on day 22 – is that even possible?
Meeting targets = work flow, not just capacity
Applications spend most of their life in a queue
Simple often stuck behind the complicated
At each hand off - bottom of in-tray
Things go wrong; don’t over-react
Focus: keep it moving/minimum handling
Do things because it’s good customer service not to meet a target

27. Small changes make a big difference
Save just 1 minute on a process… …and after 1,000 applications have been processed… you’ve saved 2 days.

28. PAS ‘DM Challenge’ toolkit5
Report 4
Decision/
Recommendation 3
Consultation 2
Receipt/ Validation 1
Pre-application 8
Monitoring.
Quality 7
Legal 6a
Committee 6b
Delegation
DM Process
Performance Management
Good Administration
6. Common Problems
Resource Management
Financial Management
5.Political
Leadership
Leadership & Management

29. How it works DM Challenge Service Review Guide
Structured: Leadership & Management, DM Process
Structured: good practice ideas, series of questions and challenges
Councils to do the thinking themselves 
Crib Sheet - capture thoughts, ideas, and questions
Move away from big process re-engineering consultancy projects…

30. …towards Identify key issues affecting performance
Deliver on-site support with customer teams
Focus on *immediate* actions for improvement
I’ll return to this laterquick, cheaper, easier to engage with
continuous improvement ‘ethic’
geared towards ‘making something happen’

31. How committees can help
Focus on role; e.g. strategic leadership, good decision-making, efficiency
Delegation; committee does what it does best, design-out unnecessary work, cost and delay
Call-in; be clear, be strict, be disciplined
Overturns – be bold but be sure of your ground; one or two appeals lost can seriously hurt where overall numbers are low

32. PAS projects with group of councils32

33. PAS Productivity and Resource Review
Sensible, evidence-based decisions
Good service, ongoing improvement
Best use of resources
Right structure, organisation
Capacity, productivity
Ability to self-finance
Ability to compete
increasing consistency and service standards across a region

34. Spend

35. Income

36. Dependency on majors
The fees from your largest 1% of applications contribute 63% of
total application fee income

37. Covering costs?

38. Performance Validation days Designation risk End to end times
Delegation
Free goes
Backlog/WIP
Waste
across the whole variety of your work

39. Regional projects (1)
East Anglia (14 Councils)
Phase 1 – cost, income, productivity,
performance benchmarking
Phase 2: ‘project consistency’
Pre-application process
Validation
Decision notice and conditions

40. Regional projects (2) Wales (24 Councils)
Phase 1 – cost, income, productivity, performance benchmarking
Phase 2 - short list of service improvements:
A better way of measuring quality (customer)
Improve quality of submissions and the first part of the process (validation)
Capacity / apprenticeship / future planners
Cost savings / stop doing / streamline

41. Defining a good planning service (1)
Perspectives on performance:
Applicant (get meaningful feedback)
Councillors (communicate, involve, perspective, champion)
Staff (are you helping them to do a good job?)

42. Defining a good planning service (2)
Indices of performance:
Repeat applications (waste)
Re-worked applications (waste)
Appeals (failure, even when you win)
Success (speed, positive decisions)
Cost (resources, variety, 90%)

43. 2 final thoughts…

44. 1. Take time to stop and think, ask ‘why?’

45. 2. Avoid simply doing the wrong things more quickly
“There is nothing quite so useless, as doing with great efficiency, something that should not be done at all”. Peter Drucker
Planning Quality Framework

46. Thank You !
Questions??
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