When I knew that I was joining the Planning Inspectorate, I spoke to people across the planning system to get a sense of what I could expect.
I was overwhelmed by the professional respect and esteem with which the organisation is held.
It has a reputation won by delivering our core purpose, to make fair, open and impartial decisions, reports and recommendations, with great expertise. My first priority is to maintain and enhance that reputation.
But those I spoke to were not backward in coming forward on the things that could be even better.
The inspectorate has made significant improvements in the time taken for planning appeals decided by inquiry, and by hearing. We are now tackling those appeals decided by written representations.
But, overall, casework still takes too long and the time it takes is too variable.
My ultimate ambition is that all the services we provide are delivered to more consistent, quicker timelines, with no reduction in the quality of decisions and greater efficiency.
That is a task that sounds easy when written in one sentence, but it will require hard work and innovation if it is going to become reality rather than just words in an article.
It will require the overhaul of our digital systems. We saw some new services come online in 2022/23 and that will continue to roll out.
But in the coming year we will also have a particular focus on the less visible, but equally essential, developments around our data and back-office IT.
It will require us to modernise our culture and ways of working.
It will require us to adapt to a fluid policy environment and implement key policy priorities such as the planning provisions in the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill, changes to the National Planning Policy Framework, and the Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects reforms.
It will also require us to collaborate even more closely with our partners across local government.
It has been my very great fortune over the course of my civil service career to work with many exceptional people in councils across the country, many of whom I hope are reading this article.
My experience on programmes ranging from planning reform to delivering the groundbreaking Homes for Ukraine programme has left me with a firm belief that genuine collaboration across tiers of government is critical to delivering effective public services.
It will continue to be the hallmark of how I pursue this new role.
The inspectorate has a unique position in the planning system. We connect multiple dots in this complex web of local planning authorities, Whitehall departments, and their families of arm’s-length bodies, the market and communities. I believe we are also the largest single public sector employer of chartered planners in the country.
I want to be generous in using our position to work with local government colleagues on many of the issues that will be of mutual interest.
That includes helping to align apparently competing policy priorities, building systems that allow us to reduce demand arising from the failure to do something or to do it right, and collectively addressing the challenges we face in attracting and retaining qualified planners into public service.
On these and many other critical areas of our work, I look forward to working with you.
