To receive a verbal update on the implementation of the Agile project.
Minutes:
The Director of Planning, Housing and Environmental Health explained that the Borough Council was transferring a number of service-based platforms to a new software provider called Agile. The Services affected included planning, building control and land charges. This was a significant change and the systems had ‘gone live’ in October.
Unfortunately, services were experiencing technical difficulties due to a number of outstanding issues which were creating backlogs in planning cases. The Borough Council was working closely with the software provider on resolving data and transfer issues.
Members were advised that the weekly list was now available as a basic function. The enhanced ‘click link’ directing to the case files on the planning portal was being worked on. Consultation comments could also now be submitted via the portal. The issues around the 21-day notice period for call-in and the new system were noted. To ensure that parish/town councils did not miss the opportunity to comment, consultation emails were also being sent out in tandem with the weekly list. It was also clarified that the 21-day notice period for parish/town councils to call-in an application was not a new process. If parish/town councils had concerns about an application they were encouraged to discuss a potential call-in with their local ward members, even if the ultimate decision was that the call-in didn’t need to proceed following consultation with residents. Parish/town councils were encouraged to raise concerns with Planning Services if they felt there were discrepancies between the weekly list and the consultation emails.
It was also confirmed that it was now possible to see other comments on the planning portal. If this was not the case, Members were asked to report this to the Director of Planning, Housing and Environmental Health for investigation.
Concern was expressed that parish/town councils had not been notified of the changes to systems and it was difficult to get information. The Director of Planning, Housing and Environmental Health indicated that it had been expected that the implementation of the new system would be quicker and with minimal downtime/change apparent to external users.
In response to a question regarding why parish/town councils were no longer consulted on trees, it was confirmed that this was not as a result of the new Agile system and the position on when the Council can consult had been confirmed to all Parishes in January 2022. Details of the new process had been circulated, via the weekly list, upon its introduction. The Director of Planning, Housing and Environmental Health offered to include a reminder in respect of trees on the next weekly list]. It was also clarified that Tree Protection Orders (TPOs) were assessed on risk and if there was an immediate issue it would be taken as a matter of urgency.
There was detailed discussion regarding potential implications for new and/or major applications and the risk of non-determination of applications. Regarding the latter, the Director of Planning, Housing and Environmental Health would hope to engage with the developer to avoid the application proceeding direct to appeal.
The Cabinet Member for Planning (Cllr Taylor) and the Leader (Cllr Boughton) recognised the challenging position faced by Officers in identifying and resolving the technical issues, dealing with the software provider and addressing the increasing backlog of cases. It was also confirmed that the Borough Council were actively monitoring progress and would only be paying for services once they had been introduced appropriately.
Finally, the Director of Planning, Housing and Environmental Health indicated that the main priority continued to be resolving ‘bugs’; identifying ‘fixes’ and getting back to business as usual as soon as possible.