Planning Services meet Audit Wales recommendations in full, new reports reveals

14 November 2024

A series of recommendations to help Powys County Council improve its planning services have been fully implemented, a new Audit Wales report has concluded.

Audit Wales today (Thursday, November 14) published its review follow-up and found that the planning service has responded quickly by taking effective action to improve its arrangements.

The report concluded by responding to the Audit Wales recommendations effectively, the service is now better placed to ensure it can sustain those improvements.

Cllr Jake Berriman, Cabinet Member for a Connected Powys, said: "I was not surprised to read the Audit Wales' findings when they conducted their review into our planning services back in 2023 and we fully accepted them at the time.

"On becoming the portfolio holder for planning, it was evident to me that when we were coming out of the Covid crisis, we were not offering the best planning service to applicants, planning agents or to the general public.

"I very much welcomed the Audit Wales report in 2023 for the opportunity it provided me to conduct a full review of the service.

"Chairing the Planning Improvement Board, I set a clear ambition that our planning service should be acknowledged as 'highly regarded'.

"Working within existing budgets, I asked the Planning Service itself to take responsibility for and lead the work in transforming development management and enforcement.

"What the follow-up review by Audit Wales tells us is that the service has successfully owned the problem and brought forward multiple ideas and initiatives, delivering service improvements and changing the culture of the team to one which is far more proactive and engaged.

"Not only have the initial recommendations from Audit Wales been met in full, but I am proud to say that in some areas of our work, our planning service is now being held up as an exemplar to others.

"Staff within our planning service will be the first to recognise that they still have room for improvement, but I have to offer them a huge congratulations in recognition that, through their own endeavours, they have rightly become highly regarded."

The Audit Wales report can be found by visiting https://www.audit.wales

The council's Governance and Audit Committee will be considering the follow-up review by Audit Wales on Wednesday, November 20.