Planning service peer challenge action plan - Action plan: Planning Committee specific PAS recommendations

The council needs to review its Planning Committee purpose, structure and format to both improve effectiveness and address perceptions of undue influence, including the rebalancing of roles and responsibilities. 

Planning committee is not operating as a positive shop window to show that the council is open to business with refusals and overturns being showcased. The council needs to recognise that the planning committee requires the highest standards of integrity and transparency.​

a. Review and update planning protocols and constitution as part of wider constitution review.

b. Review mandatory annual member training to include clear links between key decision-making and corporate priorities. Likely to be superseded by emerging national planning reform under PIB.

c. Delivery of annual member training by external provider/s to provide independent view, wider benchmarking, and a ‘safe space’ for members. Likely to be superseded by emerging national planning reform under PIB.

a. Autumn 2025 

b and c. April 2026 (subject to PIB)

Members, including Planning Committee, need to recognise their role in reflecting the corporate priorities being set and collaboratively embed the ‘golden thread’ so that key decisions support the Council plan. 

The planning service needs to work with Planning Committee to help them reflect the corporate priorities being set and collaboratively embed the ‘golden thread’ in formal decision making.

a. Review mandatory annual member training to include clear links between key decision-making and corporate priorities. Likely to be superseded by emerging national planning reform under PIB.

b. Delivery of annual member training by external provider/s to provide independent view, wider benchmarking, and a ‘safe space’ for members. Likely to be superseded by emerging national planning reform under PIB.

a. Autumn 2025 

b. April 2026

Restructuring to a smaller more focussed, highly trained committee, in line with PAS best practice. The committee should reflect the political balance of the council rather than individual ward representatives. 

This would address the perception of undue influence and probity matters as well as formalising the members roles and responsibilities in planning committee, separating the quais-judicial role away from a ward member dynamic. The Planning Committee’s role is to uphold the Council’s planning policies and apply them consistently, at the moment the ward based approach does not achieve this.

a. Reduce size of committee by 50%. Likely to be superseded by emerging national planning reform under PIB.

b. Introduce regular bite-size planning training sessions to the smaller committee to remain up-to-date on key legislation change and case-law. Likely to be superseded (in-part) by emerging national planning reform under PIB.

c. Review and update constitution and planning protocols as part of wider constitution review to ensure the smaller committee’s focus is on key decisions aligning to corporate priorities and to reflect current and emerging planning reform.

a. April 2026 

b. From May 2026

c. Autumn 2025

Review the processes for call ins to restrict them to necessary and justifiable matters. 

Review the protocols and scheme of delegation to focus on the more strategic and finely balanced applications introducing an additional checkpoint with officer sign-off to ensure only the most complex items which require democratic scrutiny are put before committee. The call in of items to be refused should be only used in very special circumstances of strategic importance and for sound planning reasons.

a. Review and update constitution and planning protocols as part of wider constitution review to remove non-strategic applications from committee. Likely to be superseded by emerging national planning reform under PIB.

b. Review and update member call-in form to reflect change in constitution and ensure clear material planning grounds are identified for the call-in of strategic items. Likely to be superseded by emerging national planning reform under PIB.

Review the processes for deferrals to restrict them to necessary and justifiable matters. 

Committee deferrals are very high and lead to duplication of effort for officers and is at odds with approach contained within the customer charter. This is linked to the blurring of roles and responsibilities of councillors and officers, as well as undermining the ‘one council’ approach for clear lines of communication and service expectations.

Review of the committees public speaking format including a) introducing a ward member speaking slot, b) revising speaking slots to 3mins with an objector, applicant and ward member slot and c) tightly controlling or removing the questioning of speakers.

The unusual practice of public speaker questioning is not tightly controlled. The questioning from committee members often strays into technical matters which should be directed to the officers. This current approach can add to the perception of bias and a lack of impartiality by councillors. The council should give serious consideration to removing the questioning of speakers or a tightening up of procedures which are understood by all. Whichever option is chosen by the council it is important that this is clear and transparent.

Consideration should be given to making it a requirement of the member that calls in an application to register to speak at planning committee to support greater public transparency and probity. Where the member chooses not to register to speak within a set timeframe the item would divert back to officers to issue the decision under delegated powers. A good example of this existing practise is found in current protocols at London Borough of Croydon.

The PAS national survey found a national conformity with public speaking and the council may wish to take this opportunity to a standardised position, especially as the Planning and Infrastructure Bill introduces a more focussed committee format nationally. The Council should consider moving to a 3min speaking for a single objector/applicant. The council should introduce a dedicated ward member speaking slot of 3 or 5mins.

Review the councillor code and planning committee protocol for declaring interests and ensure its implementation with a programme of training.

The process for declaring member interests or links to applications is not consistent and is reinforcing a perception of uncertainty around councillors’ ethics and probity.​ It is essential that Members of the Planning Committee, as well as anyone else taking part in the meeting such as Planning Officers, are clear whether they have any personal, prejudicial or pecuniary interests in the items being discussed.  These interests need to be declared and, if necessary, it might exclude participation in the decision making process.  Therefore, it is really important that strong protocols cover this issue of probity so that Members and officers are clear what action, if any, they need to take.

The council should bring forward a succession plan for the chair and should start with the following:

1. Identifying the CPD needs of individuals, and the committee collectively, to support succession planning.
2. Skills and knowledge are increased through training, e-learning and other CPD. Shared learning to increase capacity through the committee, or one-to-one meetings.
3. It is possible to appoint more than one person to share the role of chair or vice chair. Councils regularly have chair/vice chair who alternate meetings to develop chairing skills.
4. Consider a fixed term approach to the chair position to create development opportunities for new chairs/vice chairs.

a. Review and update constitution and planning protocols as part of wider constitution review to provide amends to chair role.

b. Introduce regular bite-size planning training sessions to the smaller committee to remain up-to-date on key legislation change and case-law. Likely to be superseded (in-part) by emerging national planning reform under PIB.

a. Autumn 2025

b. From May 2026

Planning committee needs to ‘own’ its performance and the impact of the decisions it makes on council resources. 

Officers should assist the Planning Committee in understanding the impact, resource implication and reputational impact from the decisions they make. The committee needs to own its data, its performance, the impacts it has on the service and the accountability for its decision including at appeals. We recommend regular monitoring reports and open discussion with planning committee about performance and outcomes, including appeal decisions related to committee decisions. 

Reflections on good and bad outcomes, policy interpretations, site visits and appeal results would ensure a consistent approach to decision making.

a. re-introduction of quarterly monitoring reports to planning committee including committee decision-making and to cover impacts arising;

• Link with corporate priorities (or not).
• Cost to organisation (tax revenues, appeal costs, resource costs, legal advice / representation costs.
• Reputational cost.
• Job creation / losses.
• Contribution towards annual housing target.
• Alignment with adopted plan (or not).
• Alignment with customer charter principles (or not).
• Set against sub-regional / national benchmarks.

b. Member and officer joint site visits to view on-the-ground delivery and reflect on decision-making. To be linked with new member training programme (see other actions above).

c. Introduce new HOS ‘discretion’ form for transparency and to feed into committee decision monitoring. As part of wider protocol and constitution review. Likely to be superseded by emerging national planning reform under PIB.

a and c. Autumn 2025

b. From May 2026

A more robust Member training and engagement programme to develop knowledge and skills and support relationships with officers needs to be implemented 

There needs to be a comprehensive councillor training programme aimed at addressing this issue. This should be done collaboratively between planning, legal and democratic services and explore the issues of undue influence, probity, call-ins and declaring interest raised in this report. The council needs to deliver a training programme for committee members on ethics and processes for declaring interests. There should be a process in place to monitor the implementation of such a training programme. Elements of any training programme should explore opportunities for joint training with councillors and officers as a further way of building relationships across the service and committee. External facilitation of this training may be useful.

a. Review mandatory annual member training to include clear links between key decision-making and corporate priorities. Likely to be superseded by emerging national planning reform under PIB.

b. Delivery of annual member training by external provider/s to provide independent view, wider benchmarking, and a ‘safe space’ for members. Likely to be superseded by emerging national planning reform under PIB

a. Autumn 2025

b. April 2026

The council should tighten up and formalise the introduction, running and voting procedures of committee.

Small changes to the introductions processes, identifying individuals and recording the vote will improve clarity of meetings and will improve the transparency of decision making for those observing in-person and online.

a. Review and update introductions process 

b. Review and update recording of voting.