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 ²⁰¹⁹⁄₂₀ 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 ²⁰¹⁹⁄₂₀

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 ²⁰¹⁸⁄₁₉, 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,

2. includ­ing An Camas Mor, and quar­ries at Broom­hill and Dal­whin­nie, which sig­ni­fic­antly influ­ence the over­all aver­age. 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 ²⁰¹⁹⁄₂₀, 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 ²⁰¹²⁄₁₃ Q3 ²⁰¹³⁄₁₄ Q2 ²⁰¹²⁄₁₃ Q4 ²⁰¹³⁄₁₄ Q1 Fig­ure 2 ²⁰¹³⁄₁₄ Q3 ²⁰¹³⁄₁₄ Q4 15 Q1 ²⁰¹⁴⁄₁₅ 0 ⁰¹⁴⁄₁₅ Q2 201 ²⁰¹⁴⁄₁₅ Q3 ²⁰¹⁴⁄₁₅ Q4 ²⁰¹⁵⁄₁₆ Q1 ²⁰¹⁵⁄₁₆ 0 201 ⁰¹⁵⁄₁₆ Q3 ²⁰¹⁵⁄₁₆ Q4 ²⁰¹⁶⁄₁₇ Q1 ²⁰¹⁶⁄₁₇ Q2 ²⁰¹⁶⁄₁₇ Q3 ²⁰¹⁶⁄₁₇ Q4 ²⁰¹⁷⁄₁₈ Q1 ²⁰¹⁷⁄₁₈ Q2 ²⁰¹⁷⁄₁₈ Q3 ²⁰¹⁷⁄₁₈ Q4 ²⁰¹⁸⁄₁₉ Q1 ²⁰¹⁸⁄₁₉ Q2 ²⁰¹⁸⁄₁₉ Q3 ²⁰¹⁸⁄₁₉ Q4 2019/20Q1 2019/20Q2

100.0 90.0 80.0 70.0 60.0 50.0 40.0 30.0 20.0 10.0 0.0 ²⁰¹²⁄₁₃ Q3 ²⁰¹³⁄₁₄ Q1 ²⁰¹³⁄₁₄ Q3 ²⁰¹⁴⁄₁₅ Q1 ²⁰¹⁴⁄₁₅ ²⁰¹⁵⁄₁₆ Q1 ²⁰¹⁵⁄₁₆ Q3 ²⁰¹⁶⁄₁₇ Q1 ²⁰¹⁶⁄₁₇ Q3 ²⁰¹⁷⁄₁₈ Q1 ²⁰¹⁷⁄₁₈ Q3 ²⁰¹⁸⁄₁₉ Q1 ²⁰¹⁸⁄₁₉ Q3 2019/

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

1. The intern­al audit of the plan­ning ser­vice that repor­ted dur­ing ²⁰¹⁵⁄₁₆ 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.

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 ²⁰¹⁴⁄₁₅ 100% 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 ²⁰¹⁵⁄₁₆ Q1 ²⁰¹⁵⁄₁₆ Q2 ²⁰¹⁵⁄₁₆ Q3 ²⁰¹⁵⁄₁₆ Q4

Issu­ing decision notices

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

²⁰¹⁶⁄₁₇₀ 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 ¹⁷⁄₁₈ 18Q1 17/18Q2 17/18Q3 17/18Q4 18/19Q1 18/19Q2 ¹⁸⁄₁₉ 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

2. 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.

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 ²⁰¹⁹⁄₂₀

1. The Plan­ning Com­mit­tee approved five improve­ment pri­or­it­ies for the plan­ning ser­vice dur­ing ²⁰¹⁹⁄₂₀ at the 25 April 2019 meet­ing. Work is under­way on all of these priorities.

2019⁄20 Plan­ning Ser­vice Improve­ments	Status
1. Sim­pli­fy mech­an­isms for secur­ing plan­ning oblig­a­tions and reduce need for plan­ning agreements.	Work ongo­ing. Expect to con­sult on draft Sup­ple­ment­ary guid­ance for LDP 2 in early 2020
Estab­lish­ing sim­pler, cheap­er and faster ways of secur­ing neces­sary plan­ning obligations
2. Devel­op and deliv­er a schools engage­ment / involve­ment programme.	Work with Cairngorms Youth Action Group planned for March 2020
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.
3. Plan and deliv­er work­shop on nat­ur­al her­it­age with SNH, SEPA and Loc­al Authorities	Com­pleted Novem­ber 2019
Shar­ing good prac­tice and ensur­ing con­sist­ent applic­a­tion of policy and prac­tice across the Nation­al Park to be held autumn 2019.

2019⁄20 Plan­ning Ser­vice Improve­ments	Status
4. Under­take a mon­it­or­ing scheme on hol­i­day and second home own­er­ship, changes of use from res­id­en­tial prop­erty and impacts on communities.	Invest­ig­a­tions into data availability
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.	Work ongo­ing
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.

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