Recommendation:
To consider and submit comments to the District Council Scrutiny Review of the Area Planning Sub – Committees.
(Head of Research and Democratic Services). The Constitutional Affairs Scrutiny Panel of the District Council has been reviewing its Area Plans Sub Committees from a number of different viewpoints:
(a) to achieve involvement of all members of the District Council as members of Area Plans Subs;
(b) to balance workloads between the four Area Plans Sub Committees better;
(c) to review the areas covered by each Sub Committee; and
(d) to establish whether changes to the structure of area Plans Sub Committees can assist the Council in achieving it Best Value performance indicator targets for processings planning applications.
This review is still in progress but the Standing Scrutiny Panel with responsibility for the review has asked the Liaision Committee whether there should be three rather than four Area plans Sub Committees. The Panel is in favour of this option in principle on grounds of assisting with achieving service performance targets and equalising Sub Committee workloads.
There is still to be consideration given to the following:
(a) the areas of the three Sub Committees
(b) the memberships of the three Sub Committees
(c) the possibility of the local nature of these sub Committees being changed.
Views from local councils on those points would also be welcomed.
The District Council is looking at implementing changes during the current year or at the latest from 2007/8.
Minutes:
The Chairman of the District Council Constitution and Member Services Panel Councillor R Morgan, reported that the Panel were currently undertaking a review of the structure of the District Council Area Planning Sub – Committees. He reported the principles behind the review aimed at ensuring all Member were given the opportunity to serve on a Sub – Committee – (at present only 47 of the 58 Members served them), equalising the work loads and Membership size of the Sub – Committee reviewing the areas they covered and improving performance against the Best Value Performance Indicator Targets for processing planning applications.
Consideration had also been given to whether there should be three rather than four Area Plans Sub – Committees given that this might improve Best Value performance by speeding up the decision making process. The Panel was in favour of this but had asked that Local Councils views be sought on this in particularly the areas, and membership of the three Sub – Committee and the possibility of the local nature of them being changed. The District Council was looking to implement these changes during the current year or at the latest from 2007/08. The Panel would give further consideration to the review at its next meeting on 3 July 2006.
In response, a Nazeing Parish Councillor welcomed the proposal to regroup the areas covered to separate rural and urban areas and the desire to give all Members the opportunity to serve on a Sub – Committee if that was their wish. However expressed concern at the proposal to move to a three area structure as this would speed up the turn around time which Local Councils already struggled to keep up with. Nazeing Parish Council already held two meeting per month for planning and extraordinary meetings for significant applications. This workload was significant and it was likely that a three area solution would result in more work and further pressures on local representatives time and could effect the quality of the decisions.
A Loughton Member stated that the local nature of the structure should be retained and that that other Loughton local representatives shared this view. The step to hold their Sub Committee in Loughton had been well received in that area and changes to this would be a ‘backward step’.
A Stapleford Abbotts Parish Council Member questioned whether any loss of the local nature/local knowledge aspect of the Sub – Committee could increase the need for site visits? Under the area system, there was an expectation that the Memberships had knowledge of the sites under consideration as they were located in their wards which would not be so if the Area based structure was disbanded.
Local representatives requested more time to explore the various options possible at their next planning meetings and that the Councils not present be also given the chance to contribute to the discussion. The Chairman of the Scrutiny Panel agreed to this and asked for comments to be submitted back to Democratic Services for submission to the review.