Review of council’s planning department to go before councillors

The review was published in June and will be presented to council’s Planning Committee at their meeting on Thursday, July 6.

Audit Wales looked at the planning service in February and have provided a list of four recommendations for the council to implement.

Audit Wales said: “Overall, we found that Planning Committee performance is improving, and the planning service plays a key role in enabling delivery of the council’s corporate objectives, but the service’s business planning and performance reporting do not demonstrate this important contribution.”

“We reached this conclusion because: the profile of the planning service within the council is improving with the service now seen as a key enabler to deliver the corporate objectives.

Audit Wales said: “There is a good team meeting structure and flow of communication resulting in a positive one team approach.

“Planning committee performance is improving but the service needs to increase the pace of its review of the committee’s governance arrangements.”

The council has said that it welcomes the report, and it was mentioned at the last Planning Committee meeting on June 15.

A Blaenau Gwent council spokesman said: “The council welcomes Audit Wales’s report and its finding that the Planning Committee performance is improving.

“The council also accepts the four key recommendations in the report, particularly around performance measures and data quality.”

Since May the Blaenau Gwent Planning Committee has seen an increase of membership to include one councillor from each of the county borough’s 14 wards.

The Audit Wales recommendations are:

1. Include performance measures in the Development and Estates business plan;
2. Include in the Development and Estates business plan the service’s contribution towards delivering the council’s corporate objectives to demonstrate its important enabling role;
3. The council needs to assure itself that the planning service has robust data quality arrangements to ensure that it reports accurate performance data so that staff, members, Welsh Government and the public can rely on its integrity to make accurate and informed decisions;
4. Full council to consider the outcome of the scheme of delegation and planning protocol review by September 2023 and decide on future planning governance arrangements.