Dorset Council’s Planning Convergence and transformation project has reached an incredible milestone. It has completed the transfer of over four million documents in just over a year.
When the council formed in April 2019 there were six different planning teams from the former district, borough and county councils. There were separate software systems for each area. Each team had 47 years’ worth of information including planning applications, building control applications, land charge applications and tree preservations orders.
A ‘discovery’ stage followed. Agents, solicitors, town and parish councils, construction companies, residents and developers were all asked what they thought of the existing systems, what worked, what didn’t and what a good planning system would look like.
The team was restructured, and work started on the convergence part of the project. A key part was to bring all the information held onto one system. Transferring systems with the volume of information that these had was a massive undertaking. This was managed by a dedicated multi-disciplinary team. This team made sure the data was transferred correctly and that the minimum of disruption happened when the planning website was taken offline for the transfer itself.
Since October 2020 all 47 years’ worth of planning information from the former district and borough councils have been transferred to a new system. The accumulated time where the website could not be accessed is a total of 14 working days.
Cllr David Walsh, Dorset Council Portfolio Holder for planning said:
“This has been a massive piece of work. We are starting to see efficiencies with employees being able to process applications in areas where there is most need, rather than being restricted to a particular part of the county.
“For myself it is much easier to access all planning applications through one place on our website. A big well done to the team.”
Once the final convergence phase is completed next month, the council’s attention will turn to transformation. Using the information, that was gathered during the initial discovery stage and working with people who use the service the council will develop a modern planning system streamlining processes and making it easier for customers to use.
No apology for the impact this debacle has had on Dorset residents and businesses?
Hi Pete – this project has meant that the planning website has been offline for a total of 14 days so far. We informed residents, town and parish councils and agents when this was going to happen and again let everyone know when the site was back up and running. We can now allocated officers according to need rather than them just working in their particular geographical area. The impact you are refering to is about the national surge in the construction industry which led to a huge workload for our planning teams. This has started to die down, and we are working through our back logs – thanks to this convergence project rather than inspite of it. Here is more information on this: Nation-wide pressures on the planning system:
The main issue caused by the pandemic was the growth in business. Many people had money to spend on their homes that they weren’t spending on holidays or entertainment. Creating extra room for working at home or planning that extension that they had always wanted. Nationally in 2020 there was a 36 per cent increase in the number of applications, compared to 2019. And 2021 saw increases on top of that. More information can be found at the Planning Portal.co.uk
Alongside this was the stamp duty holiday. The housing market became buoyant and land charge searches increased as a result. The government has a target of a maximum of 10 working days within which these searches should be returned to applicants. This target date has not been achieved for the whole Dorset Council area since October 2020. Our average response times are published on our website and updated fortnightly. I hope this answers your comment. Fiona
Not really; local estate agents are warning purchasers that searches are taking over 60 working days and that indemnity insurance should be considered. And in my chain Dorset’s search time was by far the time determining step compared to other local authorities in the chain.
Hi Pete – as I said there have been unprecendented number local searches. We are working to bring these down. The fact that everything is in the new system will help the process. Fiona