{"id":1718,"date":"2010-08-31T16:52:37","date_gmt":"2010-08-31T16:52:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ihbconline.co.uk\/newsachive\/?p=1718"},"modified":"2010-08-31T16:52:37","modified_gmt":"2010-08-31T16:52:37","slug":"wales-planning-functions-to-be-merged","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/?p=1718","title":{"rendered":"Wales: Planning functions to be merged"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><\/strong><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Work is now under way which  should see neighbouring planning authorities in north Wales sharing staff and  collaborating to provide both development and building control  services.<br \/>\n<\/span><br \/>\nThis initiative is expected to take two years to come to  fruition and involves Conwy County Borough Council&#8217;s Regulatory Service and  Denbighshire County Council&#8217;s Planning and Public Protection  Department.<\/p>\n<p>Joint working is already taking place between community  safety, licensing, food safety and more recently community safety enforcement,  but this project aims to formalise and extend the existing  arrangements.<\/p>\n<p>Phil Rafferty, head of regulatory services at Conwy CBC,  said, &#8220;We need to identify efficiency savings, while maintaining a level and  quality of service provision that our communities expect and deserve. This  project will look at organisational issues and solutions, and we expect that our  customers are unlikely to notice any significant difference to  services.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The project is looking at such issues as the effectiveness of  existing structures, business processes, IT solutions, team meetings and  internal communications.<\/p>\n<p>Graham Boase, head of planning and public  protection at Denbighshire CC, said: &#8220;This is an innovative, yet logical step,  given the areas of collaboration already taking place. It will present a  significant opportunity for both Conwy and Denbighshire to maintain and improve  the way in which we deliver our services, amid the ever increasing pressure  being placed on public sector finances.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Other services earmarked for  joint-working include local charges, licensing, environmental  protection\/pollution and public health and housing enforcement.<br \/>\n<a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"http:\/\/www.planningportal.gov.uk\/england\/professionals\/news\/archive\/2010\/august2010\/2010_08_week_4\/260810_5\" target=\"_blank\">Search Planning Portal<br \/>\n<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Work is now under way which should see neighbouring planning authorities in north Wales sharing staff and collaborating to provide both development and building control services. This initiative is expected to take two years to come to fruition and involves &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/?p=1718\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1718","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sector-newsblog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1718","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1718"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1718\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1719,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1718\/revisions\/1719"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1718"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1718"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1718"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}