Planning: Inspections

(asked on 17th October 2022) - View Source

Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:

To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what steps he has taken to decrease the backlog in cases waiting inspection from the planning inspectorate.


Answered by
Lee Rowley Portrait
Lee Rowley
Minister of State (Minister for Housing)
This question was answered on 25th October 2022

The Inspectorate has been implementing actions to maintain performance in the areas currently performing well and to improve end-to-end times for other casework. In the short term those actions are focused around increasing capacity by:

  • increasing the available capacity for inspectors/other decision makers by recruiting more. The Inspectorate is on track to recruit the planned 50 inspectors/other decision makers this year and are also recruiting 30 more;
  • using contract (non-salaried) inspectors to the full extent of their availability and running a procurement exercise seeking to increase the pool of this resource; and
  • training inspectors to handle different casework to increase flexibility.

The Planning Inspectorate is an Arm’s Length Government Body with responsibility for allocation of resources, prioritisation and overall operational performance.

Ministers regularly meet with the Planning Inspectorate and are taking an active interest in all aspects of operational performance at the agency. Further discussions will continue on how to reduce the time taken for decisions.

Reticulating Splines