Transparency data

Board meeting minutes 26th January 2024 - The Planning Inspectorate

Updated 17 April 2024

Applies to England

Board meeting minutes 26th January 2024 - The Planning Inspectorate

Minutes       28th March 2024                                       date

Title of meeting

Planning Inspectorate Board Meetings

Date	26 January 2024

Venue

Virtual

Chair

Trudi Elliott

Present

Planning Inspectorate Board Meeting (in person)

Oliver Munn (OM)

Non-Executive Director

Emir Feisal (EF)

Non-Executive Director

Adrian Penfold (AP)

Non-Executive Director

Paul Morrison (PM)          Chief Executive

  Joanne Butcher (JB)          Chief Finance Officer

  Charlotte Spencer (CS)     Leasehold Land and Planning Delivery Director, DLUHC

In attendance

Planning Inspectorate Board Meeting

Full meeting

Corporate Governance Officer (NP), minutes and actions

  Executive Support and Governance Officer (DP), meeting support

 Madeleine Burch (MB), Non-Executive Director Boardroom Apprentice

Graham Stallwood (GS), Chief Operating Officer

Sean Canavan (SC), Chief Strategy Officer

Richard Schofield (RS), Chief Planning Inspector

Shilpi Sahai (SS), Chief People Officer 

Technical Architect (CT), sub for Chief Digital Information Officer

Attending for specific items

Head of Strategy and Change (SH) (items 3, 5-9)  

Strategy and Corporate Governance Lead (BM) (items 5 & 8)

Health, Safety and Wellbeing Lead (JBr) (item 6)

Apologies

Rachel Graham (RG), Chief Digital and Information Officer

Observer

Head of Business Improvement and Stakeholder Management

1. 1.0 - Welcome and Declaration of Interests

1.1  The Chair called for Declarations of Interest, of which there were none.

1.2  The Chair welcomed MB to the Board as the next Non-Executive Director Boardroom apprentice.

1.3  The Chair noted apologies from RG.

2.0 - Minutes of November Board meetings and corporate action tracker 2.1  No further comments or amendments received for the part one or part two November Board minutes.

2.2  No further updates received for the action tracker. 

Agreed:

2a) The part one and part two minutes of the November Board meeting are an accurate record of the meeting.

1.1 3.0 Chief Executive’s (CEO) update to the Board

3.1  PM and GS recently met with Minister Rowley to discuss readiness for Local Planning Authority (LPA) delegations under s62a and the Levelling Up and Regeneration Act (LURA) provisions.

3.2  JB and team are working with the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) to discuss Temple Quay House (TQH) renovations with the Government Property Agency (GPA).  PM and JB will be meeting the interim Chief Executive of GPA to discuss accommodation options.

3.3  As part of the new addition to the CEO’s update to the Board to share successes, GS shared from October to December 2023, planning written presentation (WR) appeals the volume of cases in the system over 36 weeks reduced from 1429 to 894 and cases over 27 weeks reduced from 1960 to 1371.  The overall open planning WR appeals are down from 9115 to 8603.  Following focus on planning hearings, the average time for planning hearing cases in 2023 was 28.2 weeks, in 2022 average time was 46.4 weeks.

Agreed:

3a)   The new style CEO report to the Board was a welcome addition. 

1.2 4.0 Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) update to the Board

4.1  A number of planning reforms will be introduced or consulted on in the first half of 2024.  Biodiversity net gain will apply to new applications from January, the Office for Place will be operationally independent by April and draft National Development Management Polices will be consulted on in the Spring. 

Agreed:

4a)   The new style DLUHC report to the Board was a welcome addition. 

   ### 5.0 Balanced scorecard5.1  The Board received the November balanced scorecard, due to timing a verbal update on December performance was given.

5.2  Year to date performance is improving and having a positive impact on our mission to reduce the backlog.  In November, four measures were reporting red, further improvement in December saw three measures reporting red. 

5.3  The unit cost model is currently under review to make sure the data reported is accurate, the team aim to resolve the issues ahead of 2024-25 reporting.  The measure for quality is also under review.

5.4  Workstreams reporting amber/red against the Business Plan (BP) in November were refurbishing our office (TQH), implementing a new commercial strategy, advising DLUHC on Planning Reform implications and transitioning to the new operational data warehouse (ODW).  In December, the workstream relating to planning reform implications improved to amber.  The team working on the ODW has reviewed the business and reset the milestones.

5.5  The team are working with the recommendations of the board effectiveness review to streamline the information to the Board, consulting on the scorecard and measures.  The team will report back to March Board.

5.6  As a Non-Executive, OM said the Board need to see that performance improvement is heading in the right direction and technology plans are delivering what we had hoped, these are important areas for the Board to understand.  BM agreed, the work to develop the new scorecard will align to show progress against the mission, ambitions and the business plan which includes the productivity improvement plan.

Agreed:

5a)   The Board thanked BM and team for their work to further improve the data submitted to the Board. 

1.3 6.0 Health, Safety and Wellbeing update

6.1  The Health, Safety and Wellbeing (HS&W) Lead post has now been filled by JBr.  JBr has developed a one-year delivery plan for HS&W following the closure of the HS&W project.  The plan covers the remaining tasks and deadlines for completion.

6.2  Through HS&W we hope to strengthen the culture where staff are fully supported at work.  To achieve this, the team will work closely with Occupational Health, managers, HR business partners and staff to progress our stress and HS&W plans.  This is a priority area of work.

6.3  Risk assessment training was delivered in early 2023 to managers, this included roll out of the risk assessment policy, procedure, guidance and how to complete risk assessments for teams.  GS and JBr are working with line managers to make sure risk assessments are in place.

6.4  EF asked if Mental Health First Aiders (MHFA) are seeing any correlation between remote aspects of roles having an impact on mental health.  SS explained the team will explore the data when received with this question in mind.  JBr highlighted the data reported by MHFA is high level due to confidentiality, names, business area and purpose of contact are not reported. 

1.4 7.0 Draft productivity improvement plan – OFFICIAL SENSITIVE

1.5 8.0  Business Plan 2024/25

8.1  November through to January the team have developed the BP, combining the strategic plan and productivity improvement plan. 

8.2  Following assessment of the transformation workstream, which included impact, cost and resourcing, Executive Team (ET) agreed the 24 transformation workstreams for the 2024/25 business plan.  ET also approved the budget which is allocated to each Chief to deliver the BP.

8.3  JB will be meeting DLUHC Finance colleagues to discuss the budget return as there is a variance in the numbers. 

Actions:

8b)  JB to keep the Board updated on discussions with the department about budget and how the final figure is agreed. 

1.6 9.0  Effectiveness review – action plan

9.1  At the last Board it was agreed we would review an action plan for the board effectiveness recommendations.

9.2  Part of the action plan will be to align and adopt the Non-Executive Director (NED) appraisal process used by the department.

Agreed:

9a)   The areas of focus for the February workshop to focus on the major recommendations. 

Actions:

9b)  NP & DP to circulate documentation in advance of the workshop. 

1.7 10.0 Forward Look, review of the meeting, blog key points

1.8 10.1  No further additions required to the Board forward look.

1.9 10.2  Key points for the blog are messaging around the productivity improvement plan and underlining the Board’s support to Health, Safety and Wellbeing.

Next meeting 21st February 2024 (virtual):

Board effectiveness review workshop  – 1.00pm – 3.30pm