Response to CIPFA's BVACOP 2010

BVACOP 2010

The response of the Planning Officers' Society to the above consultation is as follows:-

Question 22

We are concerned that in the sub-division for Environmental and Regulatory Services there appears to be no recognition of the potential overlap between Community Strategies and Local Development Frameworks.  We would like to draw your attention to the ‘Planning Together' document published earlier this year by the Department for Communities and Local Government, encouraging Local Authorities to combine activities and consultation arrangements for these overlapping functions. We feel that the current sub-divisions do not reflect this current agenda.

Question 28

The POS supports the inclusion of climate change costs as a new mandatory line in the Environment and Regulatory SEA and, as a general point, we are concerned that a CIPFA SEA can be too service silo orientated.  A separate cross-cutting capture of the costs of climate change would, therefore, help in this regard.

Question 33

The Planning Officers' Society does not agree with the minor amendment to the guidance on dealing with applications.  Firstly, the service is moving from the previous emphasis on development control to the overall concept of development management and it should be these overall costs that are captured in the SEA. The heading ‘Development Control' should at least be amended to ‘Development Control/Management'.  Secondly, when consulting on individual planning applications the POS can think of no incidences whereby this would be carried out jointly with other services of a local authority.  On the other hand, it is possible that joint consultation with other departments could take place on the various stages of the development of a Local Development Framework.  The POS would suggest, therefore, that this additional guidance be added to the planning policy element of the SEA rather than the development control/management element.

Question 51

The Planning Officers' Society considers that it would be very difficult to divide the costs of research and development and allocate them to every division of the service across a local authority, particularly for smaller authorities where research and development may form a relatively small part of an individual's time.

Question 52

The Planning Officers' Society agree that the term ‘best value' is no longer suitable but we suggest that this should be renamed as ‘improvement in outcomes' rather than ‘performance improvement'.  This would be consistent with the requirements of the Comprehensive Area Assessment regime.

Finally, the Society would hope that, in preparing future reviews of BVACOP, CIPFA will take into account the views of the CIPFAstats Planning and Development Working Party, which the Society remains pleased to attend. 

DNA/CD 15 September 2009