Development Management Performance Update - Fq4 2025/26
Argyll and Bute Council · 20 May 2026
Back to Planning, Protective Services and Licensing Committee — 20 May 2026 and its agenda
Text extracted from the council's PDF. Layout and reading order may differ from the original.
Page 1
ARGYLL AND BUTE COUNCIL PPSL COMMITTEE Development & Economic Growth 20th May 2026 Development Management Performance Update – FQ4 2025/26 1.0 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 1.1 This report provides an update on the performance of the Development Management Service for the reporting period FQ4 2025/26. 1.2 The attached document Appendix 1 provides an overview of the current demands upon the Development Management Service, its output during this period, the handling of the current backlog of casework, and the average time taken to determine planning applications. 2.0 RECOMMENDATIONS 2.1 It is recommended that PPSL: (a) Review and agree the content of the report. 3.0 DETAIL & BACKGROUND 3.1 The performance of the Council’s Development Management Service has been significantly impacted by the legacy effect of the Covid Pandemic upon interruption to workflow and a subsequent increase in demand for regulatory activity relating to new development. This situation has been exacerbated by the Service having previously been down-sized in response to the longer-term wider financial pressures facing the Council combined with a number of long-term vacancies that proved extremely difficult to fill as a result of a national shortage of planning professionals. The determination of planning applications has also been impacted by the uncertainty created by a changing planning policy backdrop with the Scottish Government’s adoption of National Planning Framework 4 (NPF4) in February 2023 with minimal transition arrangements having had a noticeable adverse impact on FQ4 2022/23 output as a result of a significant volume of casework requiring to be reassessed prior to its determination. The cumulative effect of these extraordinary pressures has given rise to a significant backlog of planning casework that continues to impact upon the ability of the Council to deliver the Development Management Service in an efficient and effective manner at this time, and impacts upon customer service. At FQ4 2022/23 the backlog of applications amounted to approximately 375 formal applications and 175 pre-application enquiries.
Page 2
3.2 An Improvement Action Plan (IAP) was prepared in early 2023 in response to the significant decrease in performance and wider issues impacting upon the resourcing of the service and its interactions with customers. The implementation of the IAP has ensured the delivery of additional capacity within the Development Management Service and along with this improvement initially in terms of output and more latterly improving trends are also now able to be identified in relation to the making of timely determinations. Building upon the foundation of the IAP, the Development Management Service Plan and Development Management Charter approved by PPSL on 18th September 2024 set out updated performance targets for the Service. These include a wider range of measures that seek to demonstrate the delivery of individual elements of the IAP and in addition to timeliness include measures which can be utilised to measure customer satisfaction, and staff welfare. 3.3 DEMAND: The Development Management Service receive approximately 2000 planning and related application case work items on an annual basis. The Development Management Service is resourced with the expectation that demand will be relatively constant and steady throughout the year. Whilst the volume of new submissions decreased by approximately 10% during 2020/21 they had returned to and exceeded pre-pandemic levels during 2021/22. Submission rates have subsequently been maintained at a high level and during 2022/23 were 5% up on pre-pandemic levels. Appendix 1, Sheet 1 shows that whilst submission rates continued to show an increase in demand during FQ4 2025/26 this has increased slightly from the previous reporting period. 3.4 CAPACITY: FQ4 2025/26 has seen vacant planning and enforcement officer posts in both the MAKI and BCHL teams taken up during January 2026 with new staff undertaking induction and training. The MAKI team leader post remains vacant and continues to be covered on an acting-up basis. Staff changes have proven to be particularly disruptive to workflow and additional capacity is continues to be provided within MAKI and the Major Application Team by agency staff. 3.5 Productivity during FQ4 has continued to be impacted as a result of technical issues with backoffice systems maintained by the Council’s Corporate IT Service although this is an improving position. Significant disruption to workflow during FQ3 as a result of IT issues has continued to impact upon timeliness of performance within FQ4 arising from a four-week period in FQ3 that has had a cascade effect on determination times. 3.6 OUTPUT: FQ4 has seen similar output to the previous reporting period. Whilst performance is slightly down from FQ2 it remains broadly comparable to previous reporting periods. (Appendix 1, Sheet 2). It is anticipated that productivity should continue to improve as new recruits complete their initial training and settling in periods. It is however highlighted that recruitment issues will continue to cause some disruption to performance across the DM Service in the coming months. These include recruitment of the Team Leader role on a permanent basis which is required to bring the MAKI team back up to full capacity, and to support service improvement work across the Development Management Service as a whole.
Page 3
3.7 Output during FQ4 has fallen marginally behind the rate of new applications for the first time since FQ4 2022/23 however the DM Service has overall managed to keep pace with the number of applications validated (Appendix 1, Sheet 3). The monitoring of ‘live’ casework has however continued to identify a slight increase in the number of ‘legacy’ cases which are older than 1 year from validation remain ‘live’ and it is noted that these have increased from 93 to 95 items during FQ4 (Appendix 1, Sheet 5). 17 legacy items were determined during FQ4 however in the same period 19 additional items became legacy cases. Resolution of ‘legacy’ cases remains a priority and it is the aim of the Service to reduce the number of ‘legacy’ applications to single figures. 3.8 PRE-APPLICATION ENQUIRIES: Demand for pre-application advice remains high however FQ4 has seen a focus on addressing a backlog of pre-application casework which has seen output exceed new enquiries (Appendix 1, Sheet 4). A commitment has been provided to review and improve the pre-application process, this will include the provision of enhanced information on the Council website to allow a greater proportion of customers to ‘self-serve’; development and roll out of a new pre-application service has been identified as a priority project. Interim measures will see an additional admin process introduced during FQ1 2026/27 with a focus on reducing the number of enquiries that progress to planning officers without fees and basic information being provided. 3.9 ‘HOUSEHOLDER’ DEVELOPMENT: The performance of the Development Management Service is also measured in terms of the time taken to determine applications as it is recognised that failure to provide timely decisions can create uncertainty and be detrimental to the delivery of development across the Council area. Overall ‘time-taken’ measures have been skewed for sometime by the determination of a high volume of older ‘legacy’ applications that have accrued as part of the planning backlog. The increasing proportion of older applications being determined from FQ3 2022/23 onwards is identified in the bar graphs that provide a breakdown of application age within the average time measures (Appendix 1, Sheet 5 and Sheet 6) and demonstrate that ‘legacy’ applications are successfully being targeted for determination. During FQ4, no ‘legacy’ householder items were determined however a higher proportion of older items (between 6 and 12 months) were determined and have had the effect of increasing overall average time measure by 3 weeks. The increasing proportion of older applications is in part attributed to the disruption of casework by the previously reported IT issues in FQ3 which prevented the issue of decisions for almost 4 weeks. 3.10 The previously reported issues arising from disruption to staff availability and technical issues during FQ3 has also seen a continuing reduction in performance during FQ4 to the underlying ‘householder’ average time measure (Appendix 1, Sheet 5) where the headline KPI has increased from 7.9 weeks in FQ2 2025/26 to 11.9 weeks in FQ4 2025/26. Removing the impact of ‘legacy’ and older cases, there is an improvement in underlying performance from 9.3 weeks in FQ3 to 8.9 weeks in FQ4. It is also highlighted that this position relates to ‘raw’ data and does not factor in delays which have arisen as a result of matters outwith the control of the Council, or applications that have been subject to processing agreements.
Page 4
Whilst the data sets are not directly comparable it is still helpful to reference the SG Returns as a benchmark. In this respect the latest available national average for householder applications at FQ4 2024/25 was 8.4 weeks. 3.11 ‘LOCAL’ DEVELOPMENT: The determination of ‘legacy’ applications continued to have an adverse impact upon the average time taken measure applied to all other ‘local’ planning applications (Appendix 1, Sheet 6) where the determination of 17 ‘legacy’ applications during FQ4 cumulatively added 10.7 weeks to an average time measure that reports on the determination of 132 applications in total. During FQ4 87% of all other ‘local’ applications determined were less than 1 year old at the time of their determination and were determined in an average of 18.5 weeks (previously 87% in 15.2 weeks at FQ3 2025/26). 62% of the total were less than 6 months old and determined in 10.9 weeks on average (previously 72% in 11.2 weeks in FQ2 2025/26). The average time taken to determine ‘all other local applications’ has increased slightly during FQ4 from 26.7 weeks to 29.2 weeks. It is again highlighted that this position relates to ‘raw’ data and does not factor in delays which have arisen as a result of matters outwith the control of the Council, or applications that have been subject to processing agreements. During FQ4 the Council determined a number of legacy applications which have impacted on the raw data relating to the average time period, including items that were delayed largely due to matters outwith the control of the Council. Whilst the data sets are not directly comparable it is still helpful to reference the SG Returns as a benchmark. In this respect the latest national average for local applications (excluding householder) at FQ4 2024/25 was 15.2 weeks. 3.12 CONCLUSIONS: FQ4 has disappointingly seen further degradation to the timeliness of performance although it has been identified that this is a knock on effect from FQ3 where the DM Service operated with significant IT constraints that have included periods of time where casework could not be progressed. In terms of output, the DM Service have managed to keep pace with demand during FQ4. 3.13 The determination of extant ‘legacy’ items also continues to impact on ‘local’ application performance and will do so until such time as the remaining 95 items have been determined, and subject to appropriate resource availability and intervention to prevent new ‘legacy’ items from accruing. 4.0 IMPLICATIONS 4.1 Policy None 4.2 Financial None 4.3 Legal None 4.4 HR None 4.5 Customer Service Requirement to manage customer expectations in the determination planning and related applications 4.6 Risk Failure to determine planning and related applications in efficient and effective manner would have potential to adversely impact upon the local economy, delivery of housing, and health and wellbeing of individuals.
Page 5
4.7 Climate Change None 4.8 Fairer Scotland Duty 4.9 Equalities – Protected Characteristics None 4.10 Consumer Duty None 4.11 Island Communities None 4.12 Children’s Rights and Wellbeing None Executive Director with responsibility for Development and Economic Growth Policy Lead: Cllr Gordon Blair 28th April 2026 For further information contact: Peter Bain – 01546 604204 APPENDICES Appendix 1 – FQ4 2025/26 DM performance report