Planning on a £FiverDelivering a service in the age of austerity

Martin Hutchings,Planning Advisory Service

About this session (& Caveat)• Planning cost more than a £5er• ‘Austerity’ (?); its how we do business now• It’s about making good business decisions• …and asking the right questions• Understanding;

– organisational / service objectives – costs– the work– ‘real’ performance

• Considering alternative delivery models

Pressures on planning e.g.

Does cutting costs mean cutting service?

• The more for less argument is really about doing ‘less for less’ or ‘less for the same’

• Death of the ‘gold plated service’

But we don’t want to compromise;

• Quick decisions / quality development

• Engagement and development management

A Good (the only?) place to startUnderstand what’s important, before making decisions about

change

Organisational Objectives:• Economic Growth• Housing• Heritage

(supported by) Service Objectives:• Effective pre application service• Flexible s106• Enforcement

Strategic plan, Local Plan, Service plan

- in place?- understood?

How many planning directors could say for certain, hand on heart, what the processes under their control cost? And would the service be better if some work was not carried out, allowing cash to be reinvested in something more productive?

Mark Smulian, Planning Magazine Oct 2009

Understanding costs (1)

Do you really know how much your service costs to deliver??

• Staff salaries (easy)

• Overheads (hard)

• Premises

• Internal consultees

• Experts

• IT

Understanding Costs (2)

But what about the different elements?• Processing applications• Making plans• Enforcement…and the unit costs:• Per application• Per plan• Per appeal

What about free go’s and with drawn apps?

Understanding Costs (3)

And there are separate processes/parts:

• Validation

• Evaluation

• Committee

• Evidence bases

• Appeal

Benchmarking - local fees

• PAS / CIPFA Benchmark Club

• Pulls all of these costs together in one place

• Fees; good = can cover costs

• But not everything we do / all applications

• How do we work out what bits of what parts we charge for – and how much?

Benchmarking basicsWhole serviceCalculate cost:• Staff cost and time• Plus support and overhead costsCalculate fees:• Turn the above into a cost per hour (CPH)• CPH x processing time = application fee Performance assessed by:• Benchmark reports• Compare with your neighbours

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Example output (1)

Example output (2)

Benchmarking allows us to

• See the overall cost picture

• Isolate constituent parts of processes

• Compare with others

• See the effects of our decisions

Back to the start

As councillors, our expectations and demands have consequences: there is a cost to all of this

• What demands do we make on planners?• What do we call-in? • What’s our delegation rate/scheme?• How much stuff do we expect/actually use?• Can we shift resources – enforcement?

Understanding Workflows

&

Performance

Work coming inVolumes are difficult to predict…

PLANNER TO TILL3!!

What does it look like (1)?Volumes are

Unpredictable

…but what comes

in is fairly

standard:

Resource/time:

A = Low

B = Medium

C = High

Application Type count band

Certs 666 A

NMA 191 A

Priors 92 A

Trees 275 A

Adverts 306 B

Heritage 866 B

Householder 3413 B

Other 917 B

Use 196 B

MajorMajor 83 C

Minor 2708 C

SmallMajor 200 C

Band A

333

128

92

140

204

81

246

1,224

Band B

1,603

398

404

409

699

841

1,344

5,698

Band C

691

108

162

337

253

361

1,079

2,991

70% of what we do is routine; do we need the same

(complicated?) machine to process everything?

What does it look like (2)?

What does it look like (3)?

..and it’s not

very good

quality (in

some places):

PlaceAPPLICATION

S

%agevalid on receipt

A 2627 33%

B 1589 41%

C 877 12%

D 2116 59%

E 3199 53%

F 1545 74%

G 874 33%

What is it costing?Assumptions;

1) This group can cope with maximum withdrawns of 5%

2) Each withdrawn takes 2 hours of messing about

3) This group can improve validity to 70% valid on receipt

4) Each 'invalid' process takes 1.5 hrs

What is it costing?

Place hours cost

A 1,737 £ 78,165.00

B 281 £ 12,622.50

C 620 £ 27,877.50

D 150 £ 6,750.00

E 345 £ 15,502.50

F 10 £ 450.00

G 1,953 £ 87,885.00

5,095 £ 229,252.50

Performance

• Move away from speed for speed’s sake

• Improving speed by improving quality

• Validation, withdrawn applications

• End to end processing times

• Affect of pre-application

• Appeals

Models of Delivery

Why councils need supportPressure to “do something”• Budget pain is going to get worse, not better• Open Public Services (OPS)It’s not easy• Few examples of wholesale outsourcing• Sharing is good in theory, a growing and more popular

option• Other models e.g. social enterprises are not well

understood So keeping ahead of the game is a good idea.

Our approach

• Models of Delivery OptionsAppraisal

• What’s best for the council?

• Safe space to think the unthinkable

– Acquire some basic skills

– Understand the options (the ‘+’ and ‘-’)

– Decision-making process

• Impartial (we have no “interest”)

The answer is outsourcing;

now what’s the question?

Our support involvesHigh Level ‘desk top’ appraisal

1. Outline of requirements

3. Criteria, weighting

2. Strategic Context

4. Appraise Options

5. What’s next?

Workbook;

evidence base

Options Appraisal

Workbook

3 Months

Includes:

Staff

Councillors

Other depts.

Union

HR/Legal

Findings (1)• Planning is a bit different

• It is a monopoly – for planning OPS is more about council choice than customer choice.

• It is quasi-judicial; changing some aspects of what it does, particularly decision-making, would require a change in the Law.

• Planning is a high profile public-facing service; councillors value the relationships and confidence they have in those making decision on their behalf and the ‘control’ the council has over the process.

Findings (2)Planning is ahead of the game in many ways

• Outsourcing of the whole service (rare).• Outsourcing specific processes - typically the

receipt / validation (handful of examples).• In-house, ‘insourced’ admin. & customer service;

outsourced specific admin. processes e.g. scanning; and buying-in specialists e.g. design, conservation, legal (most common).

• Sharing of / integration of planning services between neighbouring councils (emerging).

Findings (3)– A continuously reviewed and improved

version of the current delivery model, is the best option for delivering planning • Acknowledge that this option may not be

sustainable beyond the next 2-3 years• Regular appraisal of delivery options is

good management practice. • The majority of councils are bedding down

recent and significant cost reduction and efficiency measures.

Planning on a £5er

• Good decision making

• Asking the right questions

• Focusing in the right places

• Understanding your service

• Considering the alternatives

What should you do?• Talk to your planners about benchmarking,

models of delivery

• Don’t wait – you will already be having these conversations

• Join our support programmes; talk to us

• Sign up to our newsletter www.pas.gov.uk

• Contact me; martin.hutchings@local.gov.uk

Thanks for listening

• Questions?