The Joint Overview and Scrutiny Committee met to discuss the council's planning pre-application service, and to review the council's housing performance. The committee noted the contents of the Planning Pre-Application Service report, and scrutinised the Council Housing and Assurance Report (Q1).

Here's a breakdown of the key discussion points:

Council Housing and Assurance Report (Q1)

The committee reviewed the Council Housing and Assurance Report (Q1), which provides an overview of the council's performance as a landlord. The report included a Housing Key Performance Indicator Scorecard and performance metrics related to the Regulator for Social Housing's Consumer Standards¹. The report also included quarterly tracking of Tenant Satisfaction Measure (TSM) survey responses and management information.

The report is shared with the Senior Leadership Team, the Tenant Board and Cabinet on a quarterly basis, and will come to the Joint Overview and Scrutiny committee twice a year.

The Consumer Standards are:

• The Safety and Quality Standard
• The Transparency, Influence and Accountability Standard
• The Neighbourhood and Community Standard
• The Tenancy Standard

The report included information about:

• Repair timeframes
• Rent collected as a percentage of debit
• Percentage of stage 1 and stage 2 housing complaints responded to in line with ombudsman guidelines
• Compliance combined gas, electric, fire, asbestos, water & lifts
• Smoke and CO detectors
• Damp and mould and HHSRS²
• Stock condition / decency
• Asset Investment Programme Progress
• Number of Live Disrepair Claims
• TSM Management Information (repairs and asset compliance)
• TSM Perception Scores
• Levels of Engagement
• Overall Complaints Performance
• Transactional Satisfaction Scores - Move In
• Transactional Satisfaction Scores - ABS
• Scrutiny Action Plan(s) Progress
• Number of ASB Cases reported per 1000 homes (Tenants)
• Number of hate Incidents reported (Tenants)
• Number of Lettings
• Communal Areas

The report also included a summary of a Tenant Board meeting held on 8 July 2025, where Tenant Satisfaction Measures Targets were reviewed.

Planning Pre-Application Advice: A Revisit

The committee reviewed the council's planning pre-application service, with the aim of assessing its consistency and value to customers and council officers. The review considered customer and staff survey results, pre-application advice types and amounts, pre-application income, and pre-application consistency.

Recommendations

The committee were asked to note the contents of the report. The report also recommended that the council:

• Continue yearly customer survey, and short survey with each pre-application response.
• Continue yearly staff survey.
• Encourage customers to fully complete the annual survey.
• That the Corporate Director for Place and the Chief Planning Officer review the result of the above-mentioned surveys annually in consultation with the Cabinet Members for Planning.

Key Findings

• Customer Satisfaction: Survey results indicated room for improvement in the 'quality' and 'timeliness' of the pre-application service.
• Officer Feedback: 93% of officers agreed that pre-application advice leads to a better quality of subsequent formal application. 85.7% of officers agreed that providing pre-app help them do their job more effectively or efficiently, and 100% of officers agreed that the pre-app service is a valuable service for the Councils.
• Consistency: In 68.3% of cases, proposals improved following pre-app advice to gain approval of the planning application.
• Income: The total pre-application fees received since inception for Babergh is £1,003,913.77 and for Mid Suffolk is £1,172,582.40, compared to the original prediction of between £540,000 and £720,000 in total.

Customer Survey Feedback

The report included a summary of responses to customer surveys. Some respondents felt that the service offered good value for money, with one stating:

Grace Waspe was very helpful with our pre-app - we felt we were being listened to, and she was very knowledgeable with regard to all the policies we need to be looking at and the points we need to consider before we out in our planning application.

However, other respondents were less positive, with one stating:

Very very slow response. Typically negative in tone & offering very little constructive advice.

Some respondents also suggested improvements to the service, such as:

• Providing a means to ensure that applicants engage with the required consultees at preapplication stage.
• Having a different process for householders compared to majors.
• Being more clear on giving applicants a RAG rating for their application, or some kind of 1-10 rating.

Officer Survey Feedback

The Pre-App Officer survey for 2025 resulted in 14 responses in total.

For the question Do you think the customer actually listens to the advice given? some of the comments were:

9/10 times I would say the advice is listened to, it's generally where that advice is old (we should be making a warning more clear that the advice does not stand after 6 months) or where consultees have not had an input that problems occur.

There is very little opportunity to prevent an application from being made even if we have indicated that an application is likely to be refused. Some applicants will bank on an appeal in due course rather than accept the view of officers

For the question What improvements to our pre-application advice service would you recommend? , some comments were:

A means to ensure that applicants engage with the required consultees at preapplication stage. Officer review of applications at an early stage could be used to deliver this. An agreed writing style guide would also be of use in order to ensure that pre-application advice delivered matches the understanding and knowledge of the applicant.

Mandatory Consultees in specialist areas (eg. Highways on proposals which involve accesses; LLFA on all major application proposals; Heritage on proposals that affect designated heritage assets; Ecology on future full applications, that would require BNG; Strategic Housing on applications that require affordable housing contribution etc.) - to be included in the price of a pre-app.

Overview and Scrutiny Action Tracker

The committee reviewed the Overview and Scrutiny Action Tracker, which documents and tracks the progress of all recommendations made by the Joint Overview and Scrutiny Committee.

Babergh and Mid Suffolk Overview and Scrutiny Work Plans

The committee reviewed the Babergh and Mid Suffolk Overview and Scrutiny Work Plans.

Councillor John Whyman queried the addition of a 6-month review into new parking charges in Babergh scheduled for September 2025.

Councillor Kathryn Grandon raised that the Overview and Scrutiny Committee could review the current tenancy policies, with a view of encouraging downsizing of properties.

Councillor James Caston raised that conversations had taken place with the Co-Chairs of the Joint Audit and Standards Committee regarding scrutinization of the Council's current risk registers, and that this may be added to the work plans after further conversations regarding governance.