WIREDGOV

    ‘Good work on developing policies but process planning applications faster’, says Auditor General    

    The planning services at all three Welsh National Parks are performing well when it comes to having clear policies for developing and using land.  Pembrokeshire Coast and Snowdonia National Park Authorities are also making good use of limited staff resources to improve the built heritage of their areas – which includes local archaeology, listed buildings and conservation areas.

But, the Auditor General for Wales has found that all three Parks have made limited progress in improving the speed of processing planning applications – and their performance in this area does not compare well with other Welsh planning authorities.

The Auditor General yesterday published individual reports on the planning services at each of the three Welsh National Park Authorities – which follows-up on progress made since baseline assessments were undertaken in 2005.

In 2008, an independent report criticised Brecon Beacons National Park Authority for the way it processes planning applications – highlighting a lack of robust written procedures and poor quality control. Today’s report concludes that the Brecon Beacons National Park Authority is making a high-level commitment to improving the way it processes planning applications. It has already made significant progress in a relatively short period of time to strengthening its resourcing, procedures and quality control – resulting in a significant reduction of the planning applications backlog and an improvement in the speed of determining planning applications.

Snowdonia National Park Authority is also making changes to improve the speed of processing planning applications without reducing quality. Staff changes, additional resources and training have also given a new impetus to the way it processes planning applications, although the report says that arrangements need to be improved to deal more effectively with peaks in workload or loss of staff.

While Pembrokeshire Coast National Park Authority has taken steps to improve the way it deals with planning applications, these are underdeveloped. The Authority is unlikely to make a sustained improvement in Development Management unless identified weaknesses are addressed as a priority. It also needs to be more customer focused and improve the way it manages and assesses its own performance.

Across the three Welsh National Park Authorities, the reports found a number of common themes where improvements are needed:

• Operate local lists of information required before planning applications are registered (Brecon Beacons National Park Authority has been successfully operating this since October 2008);
• proactively manage the risks to delivering Local Development Plans to agreed timescales;
• provide more public information about the roles of Members and officers and the authorities’ decision making procedures; and
• work in partnership with other local planning authorities to develop robust data and use this to demonstrate value for money.

The Auditor General, Jeremy Colman said today:

“It’s good to see that all three Welsh National Parks are recognising the need to make changes to improve the speed of decision-making for planning applications. But they are all still some way off the mark and performing badly compared with the rest of Wales. They need to sharpen their focus in this area and build on planned improvements.”

Notes to editors:

• The Wales Audit Office is independent of government and is responsible for the annual audit of some £20 billion of annual public expenditure.
• The Wales Audit Office was created on 1 April 2005 following the passing of the Public Audit (Wales) Act 2004, which expanded the functions of the Auditor General for Wales and enabled the transfer of staff from the Audit Commission in Wales and National Audit Office in Wales to his employment.        

Reports
Breacon Beacons National Park Authority - Planning Service 
Pembrokeshire Coast National Park Authority - Planning Service
Snowdonia National Park Authority - Planning Service