Issue - meetings

To receive a report from the Head of Scrutiny and Member Development which gives Board Members the opportunity to ask questions of the Director who chairs the Corporate Priority Board which matches the Scrutiny Board’s portfolio, or the Director’s nominee.

The Head of Scrutiny and Member Development submitted a report outlining the provisions contained in the Scrutiny Board Procedure Rules for Members to ask questions of the Director who Chairs the corresponding Corporate Priority Board on a range of service issues.

Officers had been given notice of the following question: ‘What were the lessons learned from the issue by default of planning consent and the subsequent reports by the Ombudsman over the Telecoms Mast on Rawdon Billing?’. Sue Wraith, Head of Planning Services in the Development Department, was in attendance to respond to this specific question from the Board.

Sue Wraith explained to the Board that this type of planning application worked on the basis that the applicant had permitted development rights unless the Council intervened within 56 days and issued a refusal notice.  She explained the circumstances behind the telecommunications mast being erected apparently by default of planning consent at Rawdon Billing.  In the case of Rawdon Billing she reported that the Department had received a letter from the Ombudsman’s office in July 2006 saying that they were now satisfied with all the actions taken by the Council.  With regard to Thompsons’s Yard at Otley, enforcement investigations are being carried out with a view to enforcement action being taken.

Members were advised that procedures had been updated to minimise the risk of these situations arising again:

·  the regulation number of 56 days to issue a refusal notice had been  artificially reduced within the Department to 46 days,

·  a system of automatic computer reminders had been put in place,

·  line managers monitor and are provided with a weekly list of mast applications that would expire that week,

·  these types of applications continue to be put in a red file,

·  the date and time these applications are received is stamped on the envelope and the envelope retained with the documentation, if not opened on the same day,

·  refusal notices are faxed as well as posted and a follow up telephone call made to ensure that the notice had been received,

·  staff awareness of these procedures had been raised and this would be regularly revisited.

In response to other questions from the Board, Members were advised that not every planning permission was checked to make sure that it was being implemented correctly but that complaints from the public were responded to.  Members were also informed that all letters received at the Department were screened and sent out to the appropriate officer to deal with.  Sue Wraith would pass on the Board’s concerns to the relevant senior managers in the Department regarding notifying Councillors of senior officers leaving or retiring from the Department.

RESOLVED –

(a)  That Members be kept informed regarding developments with the Otley telecommunication phone mast case.

(b)  That in future Members be advised at an early date when senior officers leave or retire from the department.

(NB: Councillor Lobley left at this point in the meeting at 12.10pm.)