Transparency data

Board meeting minutes 23 July 2020 - The Planning Inspectorate

Updated 17 April 2024

Applies to England

Minutes FINAL (12/08/2020)

Title of meeting	Planning Inspectorate Board Meeting
Date	23/07/2020
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
Christine Thorby (CT)	Director of Strategy
Simon Gallagher (SG)	Director of Planning, MHCLG

In attendance
Joanne Butcher (JB)	Head of Finance and Commercial (item 2)
Natasha Perrett (NP)	Strategic Governance Officer (notes)
Tracey Jones (TJ)	Change Portfolio Lead (item 6)
Sean Canavan (SC)	Head of Strategy and Change (item 7)

Apologies
Neil Hemington (NH)	Chief Planner, Welsh Government
Paul McGuiness (PM)	Director of Corporate Services
Karin Takel (KT)	Strategy and Corporate Governance Lead

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 NH, PM and KT.

2.0 Minutes of previous Board meetings and corporate action tracker

May Board minutes 2.1 Item 5c – remove the initials TJ and replace with role – Change Portfolio Lead. Item 7a – remove reference to paragraph number as not necessary.

June Board minutes 2.2 No further comments.

Corporate Action Tracker 2.3 Action updates:

• close actions 5-6 from the September 2019 Board and actions 3-8 from the May 2020 Board and transfer to the Head of Innovation and Improvement.
• close action 2 from June 2020 Board closed, updates made to the annual report.

Agreed: 2a) The Board agreed, subject to the amendments above, the minutes were an accurate record of the May and June Board meetings.

Actions: 2b) NP to update the May Board minutes, corporate action tracker and progress action 3 from January 2020 Board. 2c) KT to:

• Check Planning Inspectorate Board ToR against the framework document to establish if the Executives should be Board members.
• Remove reference to individuals and replace with role.
• Check the number of Board members required to ensure Board is quorate.
• Board provides strategic assurance to MHCLG and Welsh Government rather than to the Inspectorate.
• Under ways of working section, add flexibility to bring Board together when needed and add any new ways of working established as a result of response to COVID19.
• Circulate updated ToR outside of Committee for approval along with link to framework document

3.0 Sponsor updates

3.1 The Board received an update from MHCLG on priorities:

• Focus on planning and getting this back up and running across England, development of policy statements and new Business and Planning act.
• Support the economy through the planning system.
• Planning Reform – policy paper expected in the Summer for future changes to the planning system.
• Review of how to get Britain building infrastructure projects faster.
• The Chancellor announced an autumn spending review. In preparation for the spending review, Board was advised to consider resource requirements and link to the work to support delivering the economic and social outcomes through planning.

Agreed: 3a) To note the updates.

4.0 Operational Performance

4.1 The key update for the Board:

• Fewer enforcement cases have been received, focus has continued to improve enforcement casework performance and progress older cases.
• Approximately 1350 appeal decisions were issued in June.
• Overall volume of cases in the system has levelled at 11,524.
• We need to keep virtual national infrastructure progressing, increase the pace of virtual appeal inquiries and raise the number of virtual appeal hearings. Increasing the number of virtual appeal hearings has been a challenge.
• Inspector programmes continue to fill as additional resource has moved from other teams in the organisation to support Operations. Inspectors are also able to select cases to fill programmes when cases fall away to keep casework moving.
• As a result of COVID19, approximately 10-15% of both Case Officer and Inspector time is unavailable.
• Geographically there is an impact as there is less travel taking place for Inspectors.

4.2 The Board discussed the trials to decide cases without site visits and what information and technology is available to make this a stronger model whilst maintaining the customer relationship. This is being picked up by the Director of Operations as part of the customer productivity measures work. To understand appeal information requirements, we need to understand the customer journey from planning application submission. This will ensure we have all information required when the appeal is submitted to triage and potentially continue without a site visit.

Agreed: 4a) Director of Operations to come back to September Board with next steps to improve virtual hearings performance and plans should another lockdown happen and the impact.

5.0 Operational Delivery Transformation

5.1 The key update for the Board:

• We continue to support the live trial (private beta).
• Following feedback, we’ve made improvements and an updated version of the private beta has been released.
• The Government Digital Service (GDS) service assessment is due to take place early August.
• The replacement decision writing tool (DART) will be rolled out at the end of August
• Work is underway to prepare a business case with clear benefit tracking mechanism ahead of submission to the Invest Sub-Committee later in the year.
• Engagement with MCHLG is positive, comfortable with direction of work and methodology, there is still concern around figures.
• Top risk around this work is digital skills and not having the internal capacity built in for the future. We are gathering learning from MHCLG and HMRC around models and technology to gather the right skills.

Agreed: 5a) Director of Operations to come back to the September Board with progress update with more detail around the service assessment and digital skills and capability requirements.

6.0 Change Portfolio

6.1 The key update for the Board:

• The portfolio currently focusses on high impact, risk or cost programmes and projects. This focus can lead to decisions being made without a wider view and understanding of other change initiatives taking place and impact.
• Work is underway to change the view of the portfolio, to include all change and corporate commitments. This will support effective planning and resourcing impact. A key part of this will be to make sure the process is transparent and removes barriers to change.

6.2 Engaging with staff across the organisation will also be important to gather staff ideas and suggestions and drive innovation, the continuous improvement work will be critical in engaging and bringing people together. The Continuous Improvement Manager is in post and will be leading this work.

Action: 6a) Change Portfolio Lead and Head of Innovation and Improvement to discuss mechanisms to engage staff and gather ideas which could transfer to the change programme, consider if there are any incentives/ rewards available.

7.0 Strategic Plan Review

Priorities and objectives

7.1 The key update for the Board:

• The Board agreed in May 2020 the approach to review the Strategic Plan. The working group agreed the purpose and vision would remain the same, key focus will be on the priorities set out in the Strategic Plan, revising the objectives, suggesting measures for a strategic dashboard and drafting an outward facing document.

7.2 The Board gave the following feedback on the proposed priorities:

• The objectives need to be action orientated and include planning for the future, being innovative, what have we learnt as part of the response to COVID19.
• Engaged should be included in the objectives around our workforce – Inclusive, engaged and flexible workforce.
• Planning for the future needs to demonstrate this is outward focussed, supporting the planning system and MHCLG priorities.
• Objectives have some key words missing – timeliness, impartial, consistent, people, places and economy, these need to be more explicit.

Measures:

7.3 On review of the measures to track the objectives the following points were made:

• Carbon footprint can be benchmarked against the data captured for the annual report and accounts.
• Whilst there is a richness of data, the Rosewell Review highlighted it is not always available to others, we need to include a point about the usability and availability of data.
• We need to collect data and measure things that matter to the customer and Ministers.

Actions: 7a) NEDs to send the Head of Strategy and Change example objectives for consideration in the plan. 7b) Head of Strategy and Change to view the objectives and priorities through an innovation lens and think about the innovative changes the organisation has already made during the pandemic.

Agreed: 7c) Subject to the review of language, labels and measures, the Board was content with the Strategic Plan Review.

8.0 Reviewing of meeting, forward look and AOB

AOB:

Temple Quay House (TQH): 8.1 Government Property Agency (GPA) will be producing a business case to bring TQH up to hub standard. Business case expected in the autumn.

Spending Review: 8.2 Whilst the Spending Review commission from MHCLG has not been received, the Board discussed how to engage the NEDs and agreed this could be done via the bi-weekly NED briefings.

Agreed: 8a) Strategic Governance Officer to send NED bi-weekly briefing dates to the Head of Finance and Commercial.

8b) NEDs to confirm availability to Strategic Governance Officer to ensure maximum NED Engagement.

Next meeting: 12/08/2020