Transparency data

Board meeting minutes 04 June 2020 - The Planning Inspectorate

Updated 17 April 2024

Applies to England

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Minutes FINAL (12/08/2020)

Title of meeting Planning Inspectorate Board Meeting
Date 04/06/2020
Venue Virtual meeting – all participants dialled in
Chair Trudi Elliot (TE)
Present
Sally Dixon (SD) Non-Executive Director (NED)
Rebecca Driver (RD) Non-Executive Director (NED)
Stephen Tetlow (ST) Non-Executive Director (NED)
Sarah Richards (SR) Chief Executive
Graham Stallwood (GS) Director of Operations
Paul McGuiness (PM) Director of Corporate Services
In attendance
Karin Takel (KT) Strategy and Corporate Governance Lead
Sean Canavan (SC) Head of Strategy and Change
Joanne Butcher (JB) Head of Finance and Commercial (item 2)
Natasha Perrett (NP) Strategic Governance Officer (notes)
Apologies
Christine Thorby (CT) Director of Strategy
Simon Gallagher (SG) Director of Planning, MHCLG
Neil Hemington (NH) Chief Planner, Welsh Government

1.0 Welcome and Declaration of Interests

1.1 The Chair welcomed the Board and called for Declarations of Interest, of which there were none. Apologies were received from CT, SH and NH.

2.0 2019/20 Annual Report and Accounts

2.1 The Board discussed the Annual Report and Accounts (ARA).

Actions: 2a) SR to add the organisations response to COVID19 to introduction in the ARA.

2b) KT to:

  • Make sure positive messages about performance recovery are included in the ARA and how, during the pandemic we continued to deliver decisions and reduce the average times for decisions.
  • Bring forward from the appendix the key measures and present the detail and percentage of overall casework progressed through the year, show the proportion of our intake.
  • Start with the summary, improvement journey and then move to risk.
  • Circulate the next iteration of the ARA to the NEDs when circulating to National Audit Office.

3.1 NH and SG were unable to attend the meeting due to Ministerial meetings.

4.0 Organisation update

4.1 COVID Response Project

  • The project is now meeting once a week on a Wednesday ahead of Executive Team meeting.
  • Virtual Events work has sped up and how to move to business as usual is being considered.
  • Work is underway to plan for re-occupation of TQH, the team are working with the Government Property Agency (GPA). The number of people in the office will be significantly reduced when GPA do give permission for TQH to re-open. Priority will be given to business need and those staff with a requirement to return to the office.
  • Inspector ‘home no work’ levels recorded have reduced, with site visits restarting inspectors are involved in casework and redeployed to other work.
  • Line managers will be discussing special leave requirements with staff.

4.2 Executive Team (ET)

  • ET has reduced the COVID19 focussed meetings to every Wednesday in line with the COVID19 Response Project. The project continues to report to ET and both are on standby to increase the frequency of meetings if necessary.
  • Organisation Design (OD) 2 recruitment continues.
  • ET is going to review the forward look to make sure BAU work is on track.

4.3 Corporate Services Directorate

  • Finance team – working on the ARA and now moving on to the financial forecasting deep dive review.
  • HR – continue to support OD2 recruitment, releasing the new HR service desk and BAU enquiries.
  • Digital Services and Data Performance – teams are supporting the virtual events work.
  • PM will develop a three-year plan for the directorate aligning with the business plan and financial plan.
  • Directorate Heads of Service attended virtual training together.

4.4 Operations Directorate and Performance Recovery

  • Site visits are now taking place, over 600 took place in May with over a 1000 programmed for June and this number is expected to rise throughout June.
  • A temporary team of Inspectorate staff is being set up to allocate cases.
  • Virtual events are underway. CT and GS will be starting work around the future model and this includes how to engage customers and staff around the options and continue our learning on virtual events.
  • Longer term, there may be some cases which require physical events to take place.
  • Inspectors will transfer to the Directorate on 1st July to form a central Operations team.

4.5 Strategy Directorate

  • Professional Leads continue to support the response to COVID19.
  • ARA has progressed well, lots of good work has gone into the report.
  • Strategic Plan review is underway and will come back to Board in July.
  • Complement across the Directorate continues to increase as we fill vacant roles.
  • As the Directorate builds, blogs are being published by CT setting out the key messages and progress from the Directorate.

5.0 Reviewing of meeting and forward look

5.1 The Board thanked KT, JB and team for their work on the ARA.

Next meeting: 23/07/2020

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