Staff absences within support services forced planners in Renfrewshire to step away from improvement work and deal with day-to-day administration, councillors were told this week.
The issue came up during discussion of the National Planning Improvement Framework progress update, which was before the Planning and Climate Change Policy Board on Tuesday 17th March. The report was included on the published agenda for the meeting.
Councillor Ben Smith asked what impact absences had on the depth and breadth of the report, while also welcoming work under way with the University of the West of Scotland to help with planner recruitment and training.
In response, David Love, Renfrewshire Council’s Democratic Services Manager and Election Office Manager, told members: “There was a high level of absence within that team, so that drew a number of our planners away from some of the tasks and improvement points that we had to deal with the more day-to-day, mundane tasks that needed to be done in terms of processing planning applications.”
Councillors were also told that a proposed increase in posts would mean more planners within the development management team, not more managers.
Mr Love added: “The potential is to increase the number of planners within the development management team, so the number of planners dealing with planning applications, which would then, hopefully, increase the performance and the efficiency of processing planning applications.”
Members also heard that personal development plans are still on track and are about to be rolled out across planning and urban standards.
The board agreed the recommendations.