HL Deb 14 September 2004 vol 664 cc112-5WS
Lord Rooker

My right honourable friend the Minister for Housing and Planning has made the following Written Ministerial Statement.

In my Statement of 17 July 2003 (Hansard Vol. 409, col. 57WS) I explained our approach to achieving the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister's public service agreement 6 (PSA6) target. This requires all local planning authorities to complete local development frameworks by 2006 and to perform at or above best value targets for development control (BV 109) by 2006 with interim milestones to be agreed in the service delivery agreement. The revised PSA6 target, announced in July as part of the outcome of the spending review, will require all local planning authorities to sustain this level of performance to 2008.

We are now one year nearer to the 2006–07 target date and, while local authorities' performance overall has shown encouraging progress, there is still much to be done. I am therefore setting out today ways in which we are working with local planning authorities and strengthening our strategy of engagement with those that are performing poorly in their handling of planning applications.

We will continue to designate poorly performing authorities as planning standards authorities on an annual basis, as described in my Statement of last year. Where their performance falls below specified thresholds, in terms of the percentage of applications determined within the target time frame, then they are asked to achieve specific performance standards in the following year. In 2004–05 both the thresholds and the standards were raised by 2 to 5 percentage points. This was a relatively modest increase to give local authorities further time to make use of the additional resources available though planning delivery grant. We envisage a more significant ratcheting up of both the thresholds and standards for 2005–06 (by up to 10 percentage points) as a necessary step towards meeting the targets in 2006–07, as follows:

Percentage of applications determined within time
2003–04 2004–05 2005–06 2006–07
Major Threshold 28 30 40 50
Standard to be met 50 52 57 60
Minor Threshold 37 40 50 55
Standard to be met 55 58 63 65
Percentage of applications determined within time
2003–04 2004–05 2005–06 2006–07
Other Threshold 55 60 65 70
Standard to be met 70 73 75 80

Threshold = performance below this level at previous year ending June would qualify authority for standard

Standard = percentage achievement required within 13 weeks for major and eight weeks for minor and other applications.

We will encourage authorities to draw up trajectories and improvement plans as soon as they are identified as potential standards authorities, and will review their progress against trajectories shortly after they are designated. Help in this process will be made available, including support from the new Planning Advisory Service that the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister has invited the Improvement and Development Agency to host. Further support comes in the form of continued funding through the planning delivery grant after 2005–06, as announced in July following the spending review.

In the course of the year for which an authority has been designated as a standards authority, my officials will contact the authority's planning service to collect information on what steps have been taken or will be taken to improve its planning performance. This will be assessed to determine if further action will be needed to support performance improvements. Regard will be given to authorities' progress towards the specific performance standards they were set and, in the longer term, authorities' ability to reach the targets set out in ODPM's public service agreement 6 (PSA6).

Engagement with an authority will be reviewed at the end of the year for which it has been designated as a standards authority in light of whether it has achieved the standards specified in the best value order and any demonstrable sustained improvement in performance over the period. We will remain engaged with authorities until we are confident that a sustainable level of improvement has been achieved, with the level of engagement proportionate to the risk of failure.

Authorities causing serious concern will be asked to self-assess their performance against trajectories and draw up improvement plans to share with the relevant Government Office for the Regions, who in turn will report on progress to ODPM on a quarterly basis. If performance continues to deteriorate then we will consider the case for further more direct intervention. In doing so we would adopt the proportionate approach outlined in my earlier statement and would have regard to the authorities' CPA status.

Authorities causing a lesser degree of concern will be asked to self-assess performance against trajectories and share their conclusions with the relevant Government Office for the Regions on a quarterly basis. Government Offices will report to ODPM by exception, where performance shows significant deterioration.

I will consider the case for relaxing the intensity of engagement or for disengagement with other authorities where the annualised performance in all three categories of application is on or above the relevant planning standard and the authority's own trajectory for two consecutive quarters.

Over the past year 39 planning standards authorities were found to have made significant improvements in performance, and outstanding improvements in a number of cases. I congratulate them all on their success in improving their performance and I expect to see them making further rapid progress towards meeting and exceeding the national targets. The 39 authorities were:

  • Bedford District Council
  • London Borough of Brent
  • Brighton & Hove Unitary Authority
  • Bristol City Council
  • Calderdale Metropolitan Borough Council
  • Canterbury City Council
  • Chichester District Council
  • Durham City Council
  • London Borough of Ealing
  • East Cambridgeshire District Council
  • East Hampshire District Council
  • Epsom & Ewell District Council
  • Fareham District Council
  • Forest Heath District Council
  • Gloucester District Council
  • Havant District Council
  • Isle of Wight Unitary Authority
  • Kerrier District Council
  • London Borough of Lambeth
  • Leeds City Council
  • Mansfield District Council
  • Medway Unitary Authority
  • Milton Keynes Unitary Authority
  • North Devon District Council
  • Oldham Metropolitan Borough Council
  • Reading Borough Council
  • Reigate & Banstead District Council
  • London Borough of Richmond upon Thames
  • Rossendale District Council
  • Sheffield City Council
  • Spelthorne District Council
  • Taunton Deane District Council
  • Three Rivers District Council
  • Vale of White Horse District Council
  • Wansbeck District Council
  • Wear Valley District Council
  • West Lindsey District Council
  • Weymouth & Portland District Council
  • Worcester District Council

The new Planning Advisory Service (PAS) will play an important role in supporting local planning authorities. This includes through a newly developed improvement planning programme. Already the PAS has held an introductory event on improvement planning which will be followed up with a series of regional workshops and other ongoing support. Also as part of the PAS a new Advisory Panel on Large Applications is now gearing up to assist a number of local planning authorities in the high demand regions of London and the wider south-east.

The PSA6 targets are challenging but we believe they are achievable. We will continue to monitor progress and to keep our strategy for engagement under review as we approach the target year of 2006–07.