To report to the Audit Committee improvements in the way that delegated planning decisions are made and recorded that have been implemented by the Planning Service following a thorough investigation carried out by the Council’s Monitoring Officer into a formal complaint from a resident.

The Committee considered a report of the Corporate Director (Planning and Community) (A.3) that informed them of improvements in the way that delegated planning decisions were made and recorded that had been implemented by the Planning Service following a thorough investigation carried out by the Council’s Monitoring Officer into a formal complaint from a resident.

Members were reminded that the discharge of the Town and Country Planning & Development Control functions (including the determination of planning applications) were non-executive functions which, at Tendring District Council, were delegated from Full Council to the Planning Committee and thereafter delegated to Officers on the terms set out within the constitution and an associated scheme of delegation and protocols. It was however noted that those arrangements were set to change from 31 October 2026 following the introduction of new regulations and a standard national scheme of delegation, which required changes to the Constitution that would be the subject of a report to Full Council on 13 October 2026.

It was reported that, in May and June 2026, Stage 1 and Stage 2 complaints had been made about the Council by a Tendring resident in respect of the handling of a planning enforcement case and retrospective planning application in the District. Among the issues raised, the complainant had questioned if the Council had properly and lawfully administered the decision-making process in the determination and approval of the retrospective application – questioning whether certain Officers had the delegated authority to make decisions. The complainant had also raised concerns over the circumstances in which enforcement could be resolved through the invitation of a retrospective planning application and how that decision-making was made transparent and clearer to the public. 

Although the Monitoring Officer’s thorough investigation into the resident’s complaint at Stage 2 of the process had not concluded that there had been any unlawful decision making or maladministration, it had identified administrative errors and areas where the Council could improve its processes and procedures to demonstrate greater assurance around the correct implementation of Officers’ delegated powers in the determination of planning-related applications and associated decision making. Whilst those findings and recommendations had arisen as the result of an internal investigation carried out by the Monitoring Officers as opposed to an external investigation, the latter of which required a report to the Audit Committee, Officers had considered it appropriate to bring a report to the Committee in the spirit of its terms of reference, on the basis of there being learning points and principles around the accuracy and transparency of decision making that were applicable to all services across the Council. 

The Committee was informed that notable learning points from the investigation included the need for the Council to be clear in its reports and documentation that the notice of a planning decision was separate from the decision itself and that the ‘decision-maker’ in respect of planning applications and other planning decisions, when not the Planning Committee, was the Officer checking and signing off the relevant delegated report. There had also been learning points in respect of Planning Enforcement and the need to be clear as to the reasons why it might be appropriate for a retrospective planning application to be invited and that comments or representations made in respect of enforcement cases would not be automatically transferred over for the purposes of consideration of a subsequent retrospective application.   

The recommendations arising from the Monitoring Officer’s investigation had been implemented by the Planning Service under the direction of the Corporate Director (Planning and Community) as set out in the report – which mainly related to the way in which decision-making processes were documented through reports and decision notices and how decision-makers were identified and named.

In summary, those changes were:

·      changes to the format of delegated planning application reports to include a space where the signing officer (i.e. the decision maker) could confirm they had robustly considered and approved the report as the decision;

·      identification on delegated planning application reports of the job titles of Officers who had delegated authority to sign off planning decisions – including the Corporate Director (Planning and Community), the Head of Planning and Building Control, Planning Managers, Principal Planning Officers and Senior Planning Officers;

·      review and update the template for delegated planning application reports to ensure the correct constitution powers and delegations were referenced (noting that those arrangements were set to change from 31 October 2026);

·      inclusion of text in planning enforcement letters and enquiry acknowledgements explaining how, for some cases, retrospective planning applications could be invited;

·      inclusion of text in planning enforcement letters and production of a guidance note for customers explaining, and making it clear, that any representations received in respect of enforcement cases would not be automatically transferred to the file for any retrospective application that might come forward later; and

·      renaming of what were previously titled ‘closure reports’ to ‘Planning Enforcement Investigation Reports’ with a specific section included in the report to record when a retrospective planning application was invited, along with the reasons why.

As well as those specific changes, internal training with relevant Officers was planned to ensure the lessons learnt from the investigation had been understood and taken on board. In addition, the Council’s Head of Planning and Building Control (who was also the current chairman of the Essex Planning Officers (EPOA) Development Management Forum) planned to brief other Heads of Planning in Essex to ensure the lessons learnt were taken on board by other partner authorities where necessary.

It was moved by Councillor Fairley, seconded by Councillor Morrison and:

RESOLVED that -

a)       the aforementioned improvements to processes and procedures that have been put in place within the Council’s Planning Service in respect of decision-making on planning applications, the handling of enforcement cases and retrospective planning applications, in line with the Monitoring Officer’s recommendations following an investigation into a formal complaint, be noted;

b)       it is also noted that the learning from the investigation will be shared with other services across the Council; and

c)       this matter be added to the Table of Outstanding Issues to monitor the outstanding action of further training to be provided by the Monitoring Officer to ensure that the improvements identified and recommended actions from the Investigator’s report are understood.