2. About Us
3. Service Management

Service Management

The Service Management team is responsible for the support and delivery of Planning Portal services.

The following sections provide key service information relevant to the Portal:

• Service desk
• Availability

Service Desk

The Planning Portal Service Desk provides users with a single point of contact for technical help and guidance on the use and availability of the Planning Portal and is available between 09:00 and 17:00, Monday to Friday (excluding Bank and Public Holidays). Outside of these service times messages can be e-mailed or left on our voicemail.

While handling incidents and requests, we aim to deliver:

• Excellent support for Planning Portal services
• Responses to all Service Desk enquiries within one working day of receipt
• Answers to Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs), so that users can find solutions to common questions and problems
• Answers to queries on access, availability and forthcoming changes as well as general troubleshooting

To contact the Planning Portal, see our 'contact us' section.

Responsibilities

The Planning Portal Service Desk is responsible for receiving and recording all requests from customers and dealing with these issues as quickly as possible. 

We provide initial assessments of calls and where appropriate, work to resolve them. If a request cannot be handled at the first point of contact, we will assign and monitor the request with relevant parties ensuring that you are kept informed of progress.

We are unable to answer queries in connection with any planning applications under consideration or any other planning related matter. Some services linked to from the Planning Portal, are supported by other organisations.

The assistance we provide for users includes advice and guidance on:

• Accessing the Portal, including registration and logging in
• Online applications, including problems with creating, completing and submitting applications, and attaching files. Please note that payments are the responsibility of the local planning authority
• Site Plan Creator tool, such as marking out site boundaries, printing the map and attaching it to your proposal
• Development plans and proposal maps
• Technical issues, including issues caused by various types of software, i.e. operating system, browser, firewall, anti-virus
• Queries submitted via the FAQ section
• Feedback on the Portal, its services, availability and forthcoming changes

We also work with Local Planning Authorities to provide assistance on:

• Downloading applications. Please note if you are experiencing problems in downloading applications from your back-office system, please contact your ICT supplier.
• Amending links and contact information contained on the Portal
• Updating payment information for applications i.e. cheque address, telephone number and linking to your payment engine. Please note that problems experienced with your payment engine will need to be referred to your payment provider.

Customer Satisfaction and Feedback

The Planning Portal Service Management Team is continually looking to refine and improve our customer service. If you would like to tell us what you think of the service we have provided or ways that we can improve then please complete our customer satisfaction survey (customer satisfaction surveys are automatically e-mailed out when an incident raised with the service desk is closed).

If you would like to comment on our content or suggest examples of features /services you would like to see us provide in the future, please send them to feedback@planningportal.gsi.gov.uk.

Availability

The Planning Portal's target availability is 99.85% of the total hours in each calendar month, excluding periods of scheduled downtime as detailed below.

Although we aim to ensure the Portal is available at all times, there are occasions when it is necessary to carry out scheduled maintenance, though we always try to do this outside of business hours.

Other Related Services

The Planning Portal also provides links to the Planning Casework Service (PCS), which is run by the Planning Inspectorate.

View information on the availability of the PCS service.