Survey of Statutory Consultees Engagement in Electronic Consultation on Planning Applications

All 387 local authorities in England and Wales (including district, unitary, borough and metropolitan councils and National Parks) have now all hit the key milestone on the road to delivering the Deputy Prime Minister’s challenge of providing a full e-planning service.

In a survey, undertaken in March 2006, 39% of Local Planning Authorities (LPAs) questioned identified statutory consultees as the main inhibitor to fulfilling e-planning aims.

With all LPAs now capable of receiving online applications and most statutory consultees capable of engaging in electronic consultation with the LPAs on these applications; a project has been undertaken looking into the extent to which the statutory consultees and LPAs are utilising the e-consultation facilities.

In a bid to determine the extent to which the statutory consultees and LPAs are utilising the e-consultation facilities the following sample group of statutory consultees were approached to answer a number of survey questions:

• British Waterways Board
• Communities and Local Government
• Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA)
• Department of Culture Media and Sport
• English Heritage
• Environment Agency
• Government Regional Offices
• Health and Safety Executive
• Local Highway Authority – Highways Agency
• Ministry of Defence
• National Amenity Societies - Council for British Archaeology
• National Amenity Societies - Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings
• National Amenity Societies - The Garden History Society
• National Amenity Societies - The Victorian Society
• Nature Conservancy Council (English Nature)
• Railway Network Operators
• Sports Council (Sport England)
• Theatres Trust

In addition to the statutory consultees outlined above, there will be a large range of other organisations which may need to be consulted on planning issues.

E.G. For Structure Plans, local planning authorities are required, by statute, to consult the following bodies before they finally determine the content of their plan proposals:

• the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions;
• any local authority for the area covered by the proposals, excluding parish councils;
• local planning authorities for any area adjacent to the area covered by the proposals;
• the Environment Agency;
• the Countryside Agency and the Nature Conservancy Council for England (English Nature); and
• the Historic Buildings and Monuments Commission for England (English Heritage).

Some of the pertinent questions that need to be answered were chosen to ascertain:

• The consultation/e-consultation practices employed by LPAs;
• The volume of consultations dealt with by the statutory consultees and;
• The practices employed by statutory consultees, in terms of representation to the LPAs’ consultation/e-consultation requests.

Where possible, the information gathered from the survey has been represented in a series of maps, showing each consultee’s operating areas and the LPAs’ abilities to consult electronically with that consultee.

The LPAs’ abilities to consult electronically has been rated from ‘Not Capable’ to ‘Best’, based on the criteria used in the Pendleton survey of LPAs.

View a map of 'LPAs' electronic consultation capabilities' here