The Government has published a progress review on the Penfold Review of ‘non-planning consents’ ,including heritage consents, which is characterised by its increasing focus on ‘customer service’, and has committed to annual updates on progress.
The report says
‘Steps taken so far to simplify and improve the process since the November Response include:
- Bringing ‘customer service’ amongst the major consenting bodies up to the highest standard. A set of aspirational standards has been established that aims to give, for example, clear guidance on when a consent is needed, advice when appropriate on how to handle the application, and a named point of contact to provide support through the application process. A commitment to transparency will allow users to see how well consenting bodies are performing.
- Cutting paperwork by merging several environmental consents into one application process, rather than several.
- Cutting costs to businesses by creating a lighter-touch process for low-impact environmental consents from the Environment Agency and Natural England. This will also allow better use of public sector resources to focus on higher risk areas.
- Piloting a simplified approach to enforcement visits by the Planning Inspectorate, whereby developers are not required to attend some site visits, which are often costly and time consuming.
- Save time and money for developers by reducing overlaps and removing duplicated work through a forthcoming protocol to guide relationships between the Environment Agency, local authorities and developers.
- Encouraging greater transparency of decision-making processes within local authorities which will allow businesses to better organise their applications.
- Giving developers the opportunity to comment on burdensome and unnecessary regulation including development consents through the new Red Tape Challenge. This complements the existing ‘one-in, one-out’ approach to introducing new development consents, ensuring that no new regulations are introduced without taking action to cut costs or remove burdens of a similar level.
The work to simplify development consent regimes is not simple or short-term, and this report details workstreams and actions that will continue beyond May 2011. This includes further work that will ensure a level of continuous improvement and better regulation to increase investor confidence and allow easier navigation for new entrants. The ultimate outcome is a simpler and more straightforward landscape which is both more accessible and more responsive to business needs. Future progress will be reported upon in an annual update on simplification measures in the planning system, the first of which will be published this autumn.’
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