Localism

Memorandum from Michael Chang, Sri Hall, Sarah Jones, Sarah Marshall, Tammy Riordan and Burnetta Van Stipriaan (LOCO 25)

1.0 Introduction

1. 1 This submission has been prepared by the following individuals, who are New Zealand planners currently working for a local authority, private sector consultancy or third sector organisation in the UK. All have a number of years experience working in the New Zealand and the UK systems respectively.

· Michael Chang

· Sri Hall

· Sarah Jones

· Sarah Marshall

· Tammy Riordan

· Burnetta Van Stipriaan

2.0 Summary of our submission

2. 1 In highlighting an example of decentralisation and extending public service delivery to the private sector, we recommend the following actions for consideration by the Committee in its inquiry into localism:

· Recognise town and country planning services as an essential and necessary public service in the delivery of sustainable development and the sustainable management of UK’s natural resources,

· The need to safeguard the existing skills base within local authorities in the round of public sector spending cuts, in particular expertise in dealing with strategic and complex development proposals,

· Seek to learning transferable lessons to the UK from improving public service delivery of development management functions through limited and controlled out-sourcing,

· Seek to understand the advantages and disadvantages and implications of decentralisation of planning services, and

· That in proposing decentralisation of planning as a public service to the private and/ or the third sector, seek to ensuring a robust framework of check and balances and a direct line/s of accountability, including service agreements, conflicts of interest policy, and ethical standards of practice.

3.0 Specific responses to inquiry terms of reference

3.1 We begin our submission to emphasise and advocate its perspective that the planning service within local government is and will continue to be a necessary public service to help deliver sustainable development . Effective planning helps bring different partners and stakeholder together to co-ordinate and deliver responses to meet local challenges, such as housing pressures, regeneration, and health and well-being. Planning is also necessary and crucial to the delivery of other public services and responsibilities of local authorities and other organisations with an interest in the use and development of land as key determinants to, for example, health and well-being, and quality of life. Regardless of the range of planning jargon to illustrate the outcomes of this coming together of different partners and stakeholders to deliver shared priorities, ultimately, planning aspires to enable everyone to be involved in shaping great places to live, work and play. This is to be done in a way that is responsible to our stewardship role over the environment and providing future generations with the same opportunities, which we have and currently enjoy.

3.2 We also emphasise and advocate the need to safeguard existing skills base within local planning authorities for two reasons. Firstly, experienced planning staff are required to facilitate the delivery of development. In particular, such staff are required to provide competent pre-application advice; to assess and negotiate on complex and large-scale developments which will often have significant impact in the local area and so require mitigation measures to be secured; and, post the grant of planning permission (and other consents), to ensure high-quality design through (overseeing) the discharge of planning conditions and monitoring (whether directly or indirectly) the payment of financial obligations when payment is triggered. As a result of ambiguous advice at the pre-application stage, developers may, for example, expend considerable time and incur considerable cost working up a scheme ultimately destined to ‘fail’. There are therefore good reasons to retain experienced planning staff from process and outcome perspectives. Secondly, despite significant public sector spending cuts, planning staff need to be retained to ensure that local planning authorities are resourced for the eventual upturn in development activity. In this regard and until the upturn, we encourage the Committee to promote the (further) redeployment of staff into enforcement and / or planning policy, wherever possible. Councils would be able to (further) expedite the investigation into and, if relevant and expedient, the taking of enforcement action where there have been (alleged) breaches of planning control. They would also be able to further progress their LDFs. At the same time, staff would be up-skilled and, we would hope, outcomes bettered as a result. We further note here that planners will be needed to engage with communities. With the need for engagement (likely) to increase under localism, retention of planning staff to carry out engagement and consultation should, we submit, therefore be taken into account.

3.3 In addressing the issue of ‘The role of local government in a decentralised model of local public service delivery, and the extent to which localism can and should extend to other local agents’, we present an illustrated example of decentralisation of planning services to the private sector in New Zealand based on our respective experience. While we are not per se recommending or advocating a transition to a system of private sector outsourcing of all development management work, by presenting examples from the New Zealand context, we believe there may be advantages and disadvantages which merit consideration and further exploration.

3.4 Similarities and differences with the UK system: In New Zealand, regional councils and territorial authorities as local authorities are responsible for sustainable resource management (with resource management a term to essentially denote town and country planning). The Committee should appreciate the New Zealand planning system as a zonal system in which development schemes are assessed in accordance with local plans detailing permitted and non-permitted land use activities. National planning guidance is extremely limited although the Ministry for the Environment (the Government department responsible for environmental planning and resource management) is preparing a number of high level policy statements, which compares to a combination of England’s PPSs and new NPSs. The planning system is relatively decentralised and local authorities have discretion in setting out development rules. However national planning legislation is more prescriptive compared to the UK planning acts.

3.5 Methods for outsourcing: It is the general perception that outsourcing means outsourcing to the private sector, however outsourcing can take many forms. The advice from Quality Planning (see 3.11) to practitioners in New Zealand is that outsourcing may include the use of consultants, one local authority providing a service to another local authority, retired/ part-time planners on short term contracts, or sharing of services.

3.6 Cost effectiveness: In many New Zealand local authorities, consents work or development management functions in processing planning applications are outsourced to private sector planning consultants, particularly during periods of high workload and when there is no internal capacity to complete the work. In our experience, the primary issue was cost effectiveness.  It may, for example, have been cost effective to outsource a group of related applications for which there was a shared impact or concern or that were within a similar area (e.g. within a water catchment area). It may not be appropriate to generalise about the case for cost-effectiveness in outsourcing, as it may (will, in our view) depend on the scope of outsourcing work and each individual authority’s contract terms and conditions. However, in a case study cited by Quality Planning (see 3.11), the local authority had sufficient cost information to compare private sector bids to in-house provision, where additional resources and staff numbers would be required to improve the respective service delivery.

3.7 Selection and screening process: In choosing who to outsource work to, the responsible development management officer selected/ retained planning consultants who performed well, providing officer reports within agreed timeframes and with good outcomes. Successful consultants were those with relevant experience, problem solving expertise and appropriate people contacts to obtain the required information, in order to the job done efficiently and effectively (to avoid objections to costs given the user pay system). 

3.8 Familiarity with the local plan: In general (but not always) work was outsourced to those who had previously worked for the local authority as they did not require up-skilling and knew the processes, checklists, resources and formats in which the work was to be completed. Consultants could also come into the office to complete any necessary database work or alternatively complete forms to enable a Council officer to do this.  Therefore, private sector consultants appointed in undertaking the work, needed to be familiar with the local plan and zoning rules.

3.9 Checks and balances: Outsourced work is required to be reviewed by a delegated Council officer (e.g. team leader, manager) to ensure objective and consistent decision making and, as well, other quality assurances (e.g. site visit notes, etc). If it was necessary to make revisions, such as adding/ deleting/ changing conditions, this was done in consultation with the consultant.

3.10 In summary, in our view, the key issues and concerns for decision-makers to take into account include:

· Safeguarding existing skills and experienced planning staff in local authorities in preparation for the upturn in development activity and, more immediately, so as to respond positively to localism,

· Recognising the benefits of outsourcing of limited but not all development management functions to private sector consultants, in terms of flexibility to dealing with short-term increases in workload or where the local authorities have no officers with relevant or competent skills in dealing with certain development or planning procedures,

· Having an early comparative assessment of cost benefits and value for money,

· Recognising the different methods of outsourcing within the public sector and to the private sector, and that all planning practitioners must work within the planning system with the primary objective and requirement to help contribute to the achievement of sustainable development,

· Requiring robust safeguards and accountability mechanisms in place to act as oversight of outsourced work,

· Recognising the need for an up to date and sound local development plan as the framework for making sound individual planning decision, and

· Understanding who will bear the burden of costs – developer or local authority.

3.11 We highlight advice and guidance by the Quality Planning website in ‘Contracting Out Resource Consent Processing’. It provides councils with tools to decide what to achieve through outsourcing, to make informed decisions, and to set up and manage external processing to minimise cost and risk. The advice can be accessed here http://www.qualityplanning.org.nz/consents/contracting-out.php. Quality Planning is managed and funded by New Zealand’s Ministry for the Environment, and is the online equivalent of the Planning Advisory Service and Planning Portal.

September 2010