Staff Presentation Planning Service Benchmarking & Fee Setting

Contents Explain what this is about How it works Your role & Input Answer questions

What are we doing ? As part of “localism”, the government are devolving responsibility for planning fees to local government. Each council must set its fees, reflecting their costs for the work done No one wants 300+ different approaches so we are using a model created by PAS. Whole service approach – improvement more important than ever

Why ? Cost recovery means developers are no longer subsidised by tax payers. A local focus on “cost” leads to being locally accountable for “value”. But this does not make planning entirely self financing – community costs remain for plan making, enforcement and appeals

How will it work? We’re a monopoly service. Costs will be scrutinised and challenged by business. We need an honest, robust, transparent approach. We’re using PAS’s model (based on the Building Control method), to calculate an hourly rate to drive fees. An individual fee negotiation for the big, complex schemes.

How will the fee be produced? Direct costs (staff costs) & Recharges / indirect costs = Total Cost Time staff spend delivering the service = Total Hours Total hours / total cost = cost per hour Time to process an application x cost per hour = £Planning Fee

One of the biggest components of the work is … timesheets We need your cooperation What do you spend your time doing ? Snapshot to inform the calculations

Why time sheeting? We timesheet against planning activities for 4 weeks to establish how we use our time Other costs and overheads are recorded against the same activity codes with the help of our accountants. Then we split up the total costs between what can be charged to applicants and what the council funds.

Whole service If I am a strategic planner / only do enforcement do I need to take part? Yes – for several reasons: – some of what you do is rechargeable – we can’ set fees properly unless all staff take part – this is about value for the fee payer and the council tax payer – this is about benchmarking and improving the whole service

Why not use our previous time sheet info? There are some new activities so the data won’t match We learned a lot last time about how to do this better Things have changed - we’d like to compare how we look to today with last time For councils that have time recorded for previous benchmark work

What else is new? For the fee setting model to work we will be describing some development types in new ways Based on the present ‘Q’ codes but expanded to better reflect the specific development types we handle This will all translate into a new standard format pricing schedule For councils that have time recorded for previous benchmark work

Activity categories for time recording Generic Strategic planning Applications Enforcement & Compliance ’99’ code Other

‘Other’ activities Away from work (e.g. leave, sick, maternity) Non planning (e.g. secondments) Administration (e.g. filing, distributing post, file stripping) – not a dumping ground for ‘Admin’ staff activity Service improvement project work

Generic activities Support the day-to-day running of the service These activities keep the show on the road, but aren’t specific to any individual job e.g. –Training –Performance management –Routine communications Not “planning” as such

Strategic planning activities Making planning policy, interpreting it for others and all the many other contributions that planners make towards other organisational plans Includes things like –SCS, site briefs, AAPs, evidence base mgmt, monitoring –Conservation, urban design, out-reach

Planning applications activities End-to-end handling of applications, from pre-application to issuing decision notices Includes trees and discharge of conditions Internal consultees Includes planning appeals, statutory register Includes negotiation of s106, but not subsequent monitoring / management Includes FOIs and complaints

Enforcement & compliance activities Includes enforcement and enforcement appeals Also includes post-decision monitoring and more “Development Management” activities

’99’ Code ‘Last resort’ – keep activity coded within the main codes Not to be used unless agreed with (line manager/ benchmarking project manager)

The A and B ‘flavours’ Not all activity is chargeable Some decisions on what is chargeable are still to be decided by government This allows us to complete the exercise and set fees without waiting for the final fee regulations

Key Principles Everyone takes part Time spent doing the job, delivering the service Account for all of your time It’s not to catch anyone out – don’t report what you think we want to hear Avoid Code ’99’

Key principles Think about purpose behind activity –No code for “doing s”- code to the activity –No “specialist” codes Complete timesheets daily. It’s new and questions / problems are expected. Ask - Don’t hold back !

Time recording process Staff Time Recording, 1 (test) + 4 (‘real’) weeks 27th June – 22 nd July 2011 Staff record hours against planning activities Hours aggregated by activity, totalled and averaged Time converted to cost based on annual salary costs, NI, pension

Toolkit Time recording master sheet and timesheets (inc. FAQ) Time recording files Master sheet

The Timesheet Time recording spreadsheet Codes are on a ‘drop-down’ menu Include a date for every line of activity recorded Hours/minutes: record 0.15 minute ‘chunks’ as a minimum

Benchmarking for improvement This is not a race to become the cheapest We are joining PAS / CIPFA Benchmarking club to find out: –What do we spend money on? –How much time do we spend? –How do we compare? –What are there differences and why? –What can we learn?

Benchmarking for Improvement Other inputs: –Plan Making questionnaire –Customer satisfaction survey

Example: benchmark reports

Questions?