Item 8 Planning Service Priorities 2019-20

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Agenda Item 8 25/04/2019

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

FOR DECISION

Title: PLAN­NING SER­VICE PRI­OR­IT­IES ²⁰¹¹⁹⁄₂₀

Pre­pared by: Gav­in Miles, Head of Planning

Pur­pose of Report

To review pro­gress over the last year and to ask the Plan­ning Com­mit­tee to con­sider and approve the pro­posed plan­ning ser­vice pri­or­it­ies for ²⁰¹⁹⁄₂₀.

Sum­mary

The Plan­ning Com­mit­tee con­siders a set of plan­ning ser­vice pri­or­it­ies to be delivered each year as part of our pro-act­ive approach to per­form­ance improve­ment. Dur­ing ²⁰¹⁸⁄₁₉ the plan­ning ser­vice com­pleted three of the six pri­or­it­ies that had been iden­ti­fied for the year, partly because some crit­ic­al staff short­ages and oth­er sig­ni­fic­ant work. For the year ahead, 6 ser­vice pri­or­it­ies are pro­posed in addi­tion to the core ser­vice deliv­ery tar­gets includ­ing the ana­lys­is of responses to the LDP con­sulta­tion and sub­sequent LDP exam­in­a­tion. Once approved, these will be included in indi­vidu­al staff work pro­grammes for ²⁰¹⁹⁄₂₀.

Recom­mend­a­tion

That the Plan­ning Com­mit­tee con­sider and approve the pro­posed plan­ning ser­vice pri­or­it­ies for ²⁰¹⁹⁄₂₀.

Back­ground and Context

1. In April 2018, the Plan­ning Com­mit­tee approved plan­ning ser­vice improve­ment pri­or­it­ies for ²⁰¹⁸⁄₁₉. These improve­ment pri­or­it­ies have informed the work of the plan­ning ser­vice dur­ing ²⁰¹⁸⁄₁₉ and are an import­ant part of the CNPA’s annu­al Plan­ning Per­form­ance Frame­work (PPF) report. The plan­ning ser­vice is now in the pro­cess of identi­fy­ing improve­ment pri­or­it­ies to steer work over the com­ing year. The pro­posed improve­ment pri­or­it­ies out­lined in this report are inten­ded to com­ple­ment and enhance the core plan­ning ser­vices that the CNPA deliv­ers (devel­op­ment plan pre­par­a­tion and deliv­ery, devel­op­ment man­age­ment, mon­it­or­ing and enforce­ment). They are not a sub­sti­tute for that work, but are about doing it in bet­ter ways to deliv­er bet­ter out­comes for cus­tom­ers and the CNPA.

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Agenda Item 8 25/04/2019

Review of Ser­vice Pri­or­it­ies from ²⁰¹⁸⁄₁₉

1. The six pro­posed ser­vice improve­ments agreed by the Plan­ning Com­mit­tee in April 2018 are shown in Table I below, along with a brief pro­gress report on delivery.

Table I ²⁰¹⁸⁄₁₉ Plan­ning Ser­vice Improvements

1 Sim­pli­fy mech­an­isms for secur­ing plan­ning oblig­a­tions and reduce need for plan­ning agreements.

Estab­lish­ing sim­pler, cheap­er and faster ways of secur­ing neces­sary plan­ning obligations

Only lim­ited pro­gress made with this improve­ment as staff short­ages meant resources were focused on core functions.

2 Devel­op and deliv­er a schools engage­ment / involve­ment programme

As part of the CNPA’s approach to involving young people dur­ing the year of young people.

This pri­or­ity was delayed as a res­ult of the plan­ning ser­vices’ con­tri­bu­tion to the CNPA host­ing of the Euro­parc con­fer­ence in 2018. The young­est mem­ber of the plan­ning team was heav­ily involved in devel­op­ing the Euro­parc Youth Mani­festo over a peri­od of weeks. The Euro­parc Con­fer­ence also involved loc­al schools.

3 Plan and deliv­er work­shop on nat­ur­al her­it­age with SNH, SEPA and Loc­al Authorities

Shar­ing good prac­tice and ensur­ing con­sist­ent applic­a­tion of policy and prac­tice across the Nation­al Park.

Only lim­ited pro­gress made with this improve­ment as staff short­ages meant resources were focused on core functions.

4 Increase par­ti­cip­a­tion and engage­ment in the con­sulta­tion on the pro­posed Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan

Using what we have learnt from recent con­sulta­tions to increase informed com­ment on import­ant issues.

The CNPA pro­motiedo the pro­posed LDP con­sulta­tion through drop-in ses­sions and a sig­ni­fic­ant web and social media cam­paign. The drop-in ses­sions were an effect­ive way of inform­ing people of the LDP pro­cess and of provid­ing accur­ate advice to those con­fused or who mis­un­der­stood the pro­cess or facts. The web and social media cam­paigns have sig­ni­fic­antly increased the light engage­ment with the pro­cess and provided people with easy- to-reach inform­a­tion on the pro­cess. Although it is not pos­sible to quanti­fy the bene­fits of this in terms of form­al responses to the pro­posed LDP, it is con­trib­ut­ing to bet­ter informed indi­vidu­als and audiences.

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Agenda Item 8 25/04/2019

Table I ²⁰¹⁸⁄₁₉ Plan­ning Ser­vice Improvements

5 Con­sol­id­ate past improve­ments and procedures

For the past two years, the plan­ning team has set ambi­tious ser­vice improve­ment pri­or­it­ies. At a time when we have also recruited a num­ber of new staff, embed­ding changes requires con­sist­ent work and effort. We think that there is more work to do to gain the full bene­fit of the past years’ ser­vice pri­or­it­ies such as our Plan­ning Com­mit­tee train­ing pro­gramme, approach to mon­it­or­ing and enforce­ment activ­ity, using our new cus­tom­er feed­back pro­cesses etc.

This improve­ment is an essen­tial part of the plan­ning team’s work. We con­tin­ue to embed past pro­ced­ures and look to enhance pre­vi­ous improvements.

6 Explore effi­cien­cies in deliv­ery of the CNPA’s plan­ning mon­it­or­ing and enforce­ment role and out­door access author­ity roles

There are clear com­par­is­ons between some of the work of the plan­ning team and out­door access teams and this work will explore wheth­er shared sys­tems or pro­ced­ures can cre­ate effi­cien­cies in cost or time.

The CNPA’s Recre­ation and Access Man­ager has under­taken a review that has iden­ti­fied plan­ning enforce­ment goo prac­tice that could be effect­ively trans­ferred to out­door access work man­age­ment. The CNPA enforce­ment officer can also be used for ini­tial out­door access case­work investigation.

1. The sig­ni­fic­ant mile­stone for the plan­ning ser­vice dur­ing ²⁰¹⁸⁄₁₉ was the devel­op­ment of and con­sulta­tion on the pro­posed Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan, with use of videos and sim­u­la­tions and a major social media cam­paign. We will update the Plan­ning Com­mit­tee with a com­pre­hens­ive report on PPF deliv­ery and per­form­ance later in 2019.

Ser­vice Pri­or­it­ies for ²⁰¹⁹⁄₂₀

1. The pro­posed plan­ning ser­vice improve­ments for ²⁰¹⁹⁄₂₀ are shown in Table 2. These fur­ther improve­ments have been dis­cussed with­in the staff team and also aim to respond to gen­er­al feed­back received from stake­hold­ers, includ­ing through the Plan­ning Rep­res­ent­at­ives Net­work and the Developers For­um. The pro­posed pri­or­it­ies build upon the pro­gress that has been made in pre­vi­ous years.

Table 2 Pro­posed ²⁰¹⁹⁄₂₀ Plan­ning Ser­vice Improvements

1 Sim­pli­fy mech­an­isms for secur­ing plan­ning oblig­a­tions and reduce need for plan­ning agreements.

Estab­lish­ing sim­pler, cheap­er and faster ways of secur­ing neces­sary plan­ning obligations

2 Devel­op and deliv­er a schools engage­ment / involve­ment programme.

In addi­tion to work with loc­al sec­ond­ary Schools, we will ask the emer­ging Cairngorms Youth Action Group to help co-design a pro­gramme with young people.

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Agenda Item 8 25/04/2019

Table 2 Pro­posed ²⁰¹⁹⁄₂₀ Plan­ning Ser­vice Improvements

3 Plan and deliv­er work­shop on nat­ur­al her­it­age with SNH, SEPA and Loc­al Authorities

Shar­ing good prac­tice and ensur­ing con­sist­ent applic­a­tion of policy and prac­tice across the Nation­al Park to be held autumn 2019.

4 Under­take a mon­it­or­ing scheme on hol­i­day and second home own­er­ship, changes of use from res­id­en­tial prop­erty and impacts on communities.

The devel­op­ment of the LDP has increased aware­ness of the changes in use of res­id­en­tial prop­erty to short term hol­i­day let­ting prop­erty. The data avail­able through coun­cil tax and non-domest­ic rates records requires some ground troth­ing for accur­acy and the CNPA will under­take some addi­tion­al mon­it­or­ing of newly com­pleted hous­ing devel­op­ments. We will also pub­lish a Plan­ning Advice Note to explain the rules on use and changes of use.

5 Increase our mon­it­or­ing of hill tracks devel­op­ment and aware­ness of policy amongst estates and land managers.

Our mon­it­or­ing and enforce­ment of unau­thor­ised hill tracks has increased over the past three years. Dur­ing ²⁰¹⁹⁄₂₀ we will com­plete a mon­it­or­ing pro­ject using aer­i­al pho­to­graphy and will provide fur­ther guid­ance for estates and land managers.

6 Con­sol­id­ate past improve­ments and procedures

Over the past few years, the plan­ning team has set ambi­tious ser­vice improve­ment pri­or­it­ies. At a time when we have also recruited a num­ber of new staff, embed­ding changes requires con­sist­ent work and effort.

Next Steps

1. Once the ser­vice improve­ments are approved, staff will incor­por­ate them into the Plan­ning Ser­vice Unit Plan for the year and into individual’s work plans. The Plan­ning Com­mit­tee will con­tin­ue to receive reg­u­lar updates on plan­ning ser­vice performance.

2. The Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Train­ing Pro­gramme for ²⁰¹⁹⁄₂₀ is being drawn togeth­er now. The train­ing pro­gramme will include ses­sions on:

a) Trees, wood­land and plan­ning b) Use of bonds/​insurance guar­an­tees c) Afford­able Hous­ing deliv­ery d) Good design and place­mak­ing e) Plan­ning Sys­tem and Build­ing Reg­u­la­tions f) Field trips to devel­op­ments com­pleted or in pro­gress g) Plan­ning Com­mit­tee self-reflec­tion session

Gav­in Miles April 2019 gavinmiles@​cairngorms.​co.​uk