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Item7PlanningServicePerformanceUpdate

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Agenda Item 7 13/12/19

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

FOR INFORM­A­TION

Title: PLAN­NING SER­VICE PER­FORM­ANCE UPDATE

Pre­pared by: Gav­in Miles, Head of Plan­ning and Com­munit­ies Dan Har­ris, Plan­ning Man­ager, For­ward Plan­ning & Ser­vice Improvement

Pur­pose

To update and inform the Com­mit­tee on the stat­ist­ic­al per­form­ance of the CNPA plan­ning ser­vice to the end of Quarter 2 of 201920 and wider plan­ning ser­vice work delivery.

Recom­mend­a­tion

That the Committee:

i. Note the intern­al plan­ning ser­vice mon­it­or­ing res­ults out­lined in this report

Back­ground

  1. The CNPA Plan­ning Ser­vice pro­duces bian­nu­al per­form­ance reports to mon­it­or plan­ning ser­vice per­form­ance and imple­ment improve­ments and changes to the ser­vice. Officers take per­form­ance updates to the Plan­ning Com­mit­tee every six months for inform­a­tion and as a way of sup­ple­ment­ing annu­al Plan­ning Per­form­ance Frame­work (PPF) reports and the Scot­tish Government’s feed­back on PPF reports. The Plan­ning Committee’s last plan­ning ser­vice per­form­ance update was in June 2019.

Plan­ning Ser­vice Per­form­ance Update to Quarter 3 201920

Determ­in­a­tion times­cales and pro­cessing agreements

  1. The CNPA’s use of pro­cessing agree­ments con­tin­ues to be a good way to provide cer­tainty for applic­ants and for CNPA staff. Dur­ing the final two quar­ters of 201819, 70% of all the plan­ning applic­a­tions determ­ined by the CNPA had pro­cessing agree­ments. The agreed times­cales were met on 70% of these applic­a­tions. The aver­age time for determ­in­a­tion of plan­ning applic­a­tions with a pro­cessing agree­ment was nearly 35 weeks, sig­ni­fic­antly slower that dur­ing the first two months of the year. How­ever, this report­ing peri­od included the issue of decision notices for a num­ber of long stand­ing applic­a­tions with leg­al agree­ments that took a long time to complete,

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Agenda Item 7 13/12/19

includ­ing An Camas Mor, and quar­ries at Broom­hill and Dal­whin­nie, which sig­ni­fic­antly influ­ence the over­all average.

  1. The use of pro­cessing agree­ments is reflec­ted in the offi­cial stat­ist­ics pro­duced by the Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment, which exclude times­cales for applic­a­tions with pro­cessing agree­ments. Fig­ures 1 and 2 show the offi­cial stat­ist­ics for applic­a­tions that did not have pro­cessing agree­ments and the fact that dur­ing quar­ters 1 and 2 of 201920, only six applic­a­tions were determ­ined that did not have pro­cessing agree­ments and the aver­age time for determ­in­a­tion was less than 10 weeks.

Fig­ure I

Aver­age Time for plan­ning applic­a­tion determ­in­a­tion for Loc­al Devel­op­ments (most CNPA call-in apps)

Aver­age time (weeks) 998877665544332211 50505050505050505050 00000000000000000000 201213 Q3 201314 Q2 201213 Q4 201314 Q1 Fig­ure 2 201314 Q3 201314 Q4 15 Q1 201415 0 01415 Q2 201 201415 Q3 201415 Q4 201516 Q1 201516 0 201 01516 Q3 201516 Q4 201617 Q1 201617 Q2 201617 Q3 201617 Q4 201718 Q1 201718 Q2 201718 Q3 201718 Q4 201819 Q1 201819 Q2 201819 Q3 201819 Q4 2019/20Q1 2019/20Q2 Aver­age time for loc­al non house­hold­er applic­a­tions (weeks) com­par­is­on Aber­deen­shire Angus CNPA offi­cial stats CNPA Pro­cessing Agree­ments High­land Loch Lomond & The Trossachs NP Moray Perth & Kinross SCOT­LAND 100.0 90.0 80.0 70.0 60.0 50.0 40.0 30.0 20.0 10.0 0.0 201213 Q3 201314 Q1 201314 Q3 201415 Q1 201415 201516 Q1 201516 Q3 201617 Q1 201617 Q3 201718 Q1 201718 Q3 201819 Q1 201819 Q3 2019/

  1. The intern­al audit of the plan­ning ser­vice that repor­ted dur­ing 201516 recom­men­ded that the CNPA use a rolling annu­al aver­age indic­at­or for ser­vice per­form­ance mon­it­or­ing. Fig­ure 3 shows the CNPA’s quarterly aver­age against a rolling annu­al aver­age fig­ure. In simple terms, if the aver­age time for a quarter is lower than the rolling aver­age fig­ure, then per­form­ance should be improv­ing, but giv­en the small num­ber of applic­a­tions that are being recor­ded in this way, the data is eas­ily mis­un­der­stood. The increas­ing times­cales for the applic­a­tions with pro­cessing agree­ments and the rolling aver­age are explained in factors in the para­graphs above.

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Agenda Item 7 13/12/19

Fig­ure 3

Aver­age Time (weeks) Loc­al Devel­op­ments by quarter and rolling 12 months (line) ‑CNPA aver­age time for last 12 months ‑CNPA Pro­cessing Agree­ments CNPA aver­age time for Quarter 100 90 80 70 60 Time 50 (weeks) 40 30 20 10 0 18/19Q4 19/20Q1 19/20Q2 201415 100% 90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0% 13/14Q4 14/15Q1 14/15Q2 14/15Q3 14/15Q4 15/16Q1 15/16Q2 15/16Q3 15/16Q4 16/17Q1 16/17Q2 16/17Q3 Fig­ure 4 % of decision notices issued with­in 7 days of determ­in­a­tion Q4 201516 Q1 201516 Q2 201516 Q3 201516 Q4 Issu­ing decision notices

  1. The plan­ning ser­vice has con­tin­ued to main­tain a pat­tern of swift decision notice pro­duc­tion fol­low­ing plan­ning com­mit­tee decisions.

2016170 17Q1 2016/17Q2 2016/17Q3 2016/17Q4 2017/18Q1 Quarter of Year 2017/18Q2 2017/18Q3 2017/18Q4 18/19Q1 18/19Q2 18/19Q3 16/17Q4 1718 18Q1 17/18Q2 17/18Q3 17/18Q4 18/19Q1 18/19Q2 1819 Q3 18/19Q4 19/20Q1 19/20Q2 Pro­posed Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan Exam­in­a­tion Update

  1. The CNPA sent unre­solved rep­res­ent­a­tions on the pro­posed LDP to the Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment Dir­ect­or­ate for Plan­ning and Envir­on­ment­al Appeals (DPEA) for exam­in­a­tion on 20 Septem­ber 2019. On 3 Decem­ber we received notice from the DPEA that report­ers have been appoin­ted to exam­ine the LDP. The report­ers’ first task is to exam­ine the con­form­ity of the par­ti­cip­a­tion state­ment pre­pared by the CNPA that explains how we con­sul­ted on it. The earli­est date that the report­ers will start to exam­ine the issues raised in rep­res­ent­a­tions (set out in the Sched­ule 4’ pre­pared by the CNPA) will be 31 Decem­ber 2019, so we expect much of the exam­in­a­tion to take place in the early part of 2020.

Enforce­ment Update

  1. As the Plan­ning Com­mit­tee are aware the CNPA has com­mit­ted to increas­ing our mon­it­or­ing of hill tracks and rais­ing aware­ness of policy amongst estates and land

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Agenda Item 7 13/12/19

man­agers. The CNPA has a large num­ber of live invest­ig­a­tions into poten­tial breaches that are not repor­ted in pub­lic because to do so could under­mine poten­tial form­al enforce­ment action and ulti­mately, pos­sible pro­sec­u­tion of asso­ci­ated offences. The fre­quency of ret­ro­spect­ive plan­ning applic­a­tions for track improve­ments to the Plan­ning Com­mit­tee provides an indic­a­tion of the mon­it­or­ing work, and invest­ig­a­tions, as well as quer­ies from mem­bers of the public.

  1. To sup­port this work, the CNPA employed an intern dur­ing the sum­mer of 2019 to under­take a com­pre­hens­ive map­ping exer­cise of exist­ing tracks across the moor­land and hills of the Nation­al Park using the most up to date aer­i­al pho­to­graphy and satel­lite imagery. The data is cur­rently being checked, but once com­pleted, the map­ping will provide a good baseline from which to mon­it­or change. It will include all the long-estab­lished tracks, those that have been author­ised through applic­a­tions for plan­ning per­mis­sion, pri­or noti­fic­a­tion or pri­or approv­al, and will attempt to map the well-estab­lished or obvi­ous ATV track lines. Our inten­tion is that once the map­ping is com­pleted and the data is appro­pri­ately clas­si­fied and qual­i­fied, it will be avail­able in pub­lic as well as for the CNPA’s use.

Plan­ning Ser­vice Improve­ments 201920

  1. The Plan­ning Com­mit­tee approved five improve­ment pri­or­it­ies for the plan­ning ser­vice dur­ing 201920 at the 25 April 2019 meet­ing. Work is under­way on all of these priorities.
201920 Plan­ning Ser­vice Improve­mentsStatus
1. Sim­pli­fy mech­an­isms for secur­ing plan­ning oblig­a­tions and reduce need for plan­ning agree­ments.

Estab­lish­ing sim­pler, cheap­er and faster ways of secur­ing neces­sary plan­ning obligations
Work ongo­ing.
Expect to con­sult on draft Sup­ple­ment­ary guid­ance for LDP 2 in early 2020
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.
Work with Cairngorms Youth Action Group planned for March 2020
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.
Com­pleted Novem­ber 2019

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CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Agenda Item 7 13/12/19

201920 Plan­ning Ser­vice Improve­mentsStatus
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.
Invest­ig­a­tions into data availability
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 201920 we will com­plete a mon­it­or­ing pro­ject using aer­i­al pho­to­graphy and will provide fur­ther guid­ance for estates and land managers.
Work ongo­ing

Next Report

  1. The next plan­ning ser­vice mon­it­or­ing report will be in June 2020.

Gav­in Miles Dan Har­ris Decem­ber 2019 gavinmiles@​cairngorms.​co.​uk danharris@​cairngorms.​co.​uk

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