Charnwood Borough Council

Customer survey carried out in September /October 2006

This survey was sent to all applicants or their named agents who submitted a planning application between 1st June 2006 and 31st August 2006.

77% of all returned questionnaires stated they were satisfied with the service we had provided.

There were however comments in respect of individual questions or as general comments on customer experiences and these are all reproduced in the PDF document applicant/agent questionnaire responses. This document also includes our response to the comments made to show we take any comments seriously and are acting on those comments where we can.

Compliments

40 comments were received directly complimenting the service we provide and we thank everyone for these. It is heartening to know we do get it right.
A number of comments do however criticise officers and our procedures and we recognise there maybe training issues that need to be addressed or procedures that need to be reassessed.

Telephones

6 respondents commented on the use of voice mail. Officers also have concerns with the voice mail system, however, there are benefits to having this system since it does allow officers time to concentrate on reports and processing applications without being constantly interrupted by phone calls. We are therefore going to look critically at this issue and consult with our regular customers to see whether it should remain, be changed or scrapped altogether.

Pre-application advice

7 comments were received in respect of the issue of pre application discussion/consultation. We request the submission of sketches to enable officers to be fully conversant with what you are proposing, it is difficult to advise customers without such information and we have in the past being criticised because we have misunderstood what people are proposing and customers have misinterpreted what we have told them. This system enables all issues to be fully understood to ensure the submitted application can be dealt with as expediently as possible.

Registration

We acknowledge that we have had problems with the registration process and we are putting in place systems to speed this up and meet our target of 3 working days for the majority of applications (10 working days for large major applications). This delay however has not affected the time period allowed for processing an application because our 8 week time period (13 week for major applications) commences on the date a valid application is received and not the date we register it. One of the major delays in the registration process is the number of applications that are invalid on submission 50% at present. We are looking at this and are proposing an agent workshop and giving clearer and better guidance to ensure the majority of applications include all the information required to process it.

Amendments/negotiation

We encourage the use of pre application submission in order to iron out any problems. It is recognised that this is not always possible and can take time to get a response, but because we have to carryout re-consultations on amendments, even if they are considered to be for the better, we will make decisions on the application as submitted rather than negotiate amendments once an application has been submitted. Unfortunately we have been set targets by central government to make decisions on applications within 8 weeks (13 for major applications) and are criticised if targets are not met.

Job share

Our performance figures do not show there is any delay because applications are dealt with by staff working reduced hours. It is recognised that there maybe issues when trying to contact staff and we now explain clearly in letters and on the web-site the hours staff normally work (excluding holidays)

Process/decisions

There are a significant number of comments about decisions and the process of determining applications. The responses can be seen on the PDF document applicant/agent questionnaire responses.

Disability/race etc questions

We are trying to establish the ethnic/disability background of all our customers, to ensure we provide a service equally to all.

Survey sent incorrectly

We acknowledge that questionnaires were sent out to applicants when they had agents and we apologise that this did occur. It was a problem with the report taking information from our data base and we will ensure it does not happen again.