Poor Planning Performance Costs Money (Surrey Heath Liberal Democrats

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Poor Planning Performance Costs Money

September 29, 2009 1:37 PM

Planning Delivery Grant for local councils 2004/5 to 2008/9

Surrey Heath's Lost Government Grant over 5 Years

Surrey Heath Borough Council has a budget problem and is looking for ways of reducing expenditure by reducing services to Surrey Heath residents. But Surrey Heath's poor performance on turning around planning applications has lost the Council over £1.2m of Government grants over the last five years, compared with other councils in this area!

The Government grant in question is called Planning Delivery Grant. This is a grant given to local authorities to reward good performance of the planning function (though recently extended to housing as well). Unfortunately, Surrey Heath isn't very good at this, and hasn't been for a long time - to quote the last Audit Commission letter (2008/2009):

"Planning services are improving but the key performance indicators that impact most on customers - time to determine applications - are either below average or worst performing compared to other councils".

Indeed, looking at the last available official figures (September 2008), Surrey Heath ranks 324th out of 368 in the local authority league tables for deciding on minor planning applications (with similar ranking for other classes of application).

The result of this poor performance is then reflected in the grant to Surrey Heath in 2008/09. Comparing with our closest neighbours, who have similar pressures, Rushmoor got funding of £440,372, and Hart got the sum of £313,964. But Surrey Heath's performance only earned it £42,397, less than a tenth of Rushmoor's reward!

This underperformance has been going on for years. Taken over 5 years, Rushmoor has received £2.08m, Hart £1.82m, but Surrey Heath only £0.56m. So that's £1.2m lost over the last 5 years due to poor performance.

If Surrey Heath wants to address its financial issues, it needs to maximise its income from Government and European sources. And it needs to ensure that the money it already has is well spent. Rather than blaming the lack of Government funding for any cuts (because it obviously couldn't be the fault of the local Conservative leadership here in Surrey Heath), the Council needs to get its own house in order first. Only then should the Council dare to consider reductions in services deeply valued by residents.