This popular and widely read blog acts as a Legal Commentary on issues affecting Town & Country Planning including recent changes in planning legislation and judicial rulings in planning cases, as well as some thoughts on other issues arising in the course of my work as a Planning Lawyer. It was originally intended mainly for fellow planning professionals, but all are welcome to read it. The views expressed are my own and nobody else’s.
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Monday, 6 April 2020
Virtual planning meetings
The legislation required to authorise virtual meetings for local authorities, including their planning committees, are now in force, The Local Authorities and Police and Crime Panels (Coronavirus) (Flexibility of Local Authority and Police and Crime Panel Meetings) (England and Wales) Regulations 2020 were made on 1 April and came into force on Saturday (4 April). So far as meetings of local authorities are concerned, these regulations apply only to England. They apply to local authority meetings that are required to be held, or are held, before 7th May 2021.
I don’t propose to go into the regulations in any detail, but will simply summarise the main points. Part 2 deals with remote attendance at meetings. By Regulation 4 a local authority may hold such meetings at such times and on such days as they may determine, and may alter the frequency, or move or cancel such meetings, without requirement for further notice. Regulation 5 allows ‘virtual’ (remote) attendance at meetings. So a meeting can be held in more than one place, including electronic, digital or virtual locations such as internet locations, web addresses or conference call telephone numbers.
Part 3 of the Regs (Regs 6 to 17) modifies meeting and public access requirements. A member can be “in remote attendance” at a meeting where they are able at that time to hear, and be heard (and where practicable see and be seen) by, the other members in attendance, as well as being heard (and, where practicable, seen) by any members of the public attending the meeting [or the virtual meeting]. (References to a member, or a member of the public, attending a meeting includes a person attending by remote access.) This overrides any existing standing order that would normally prevent this.
A local authority may make other standing orders and any other rules governing remote attendance at meetings of that authority, including provision for voting, member and public access to documents, and remote access of public and press to a local authority meeting to enable them to attend or participate in that meeting by electronic means, including by telephone conference, video conference, live webcasts, and live interactive streaming.
Schedule 12 of the 1972 Act is amended to allow these changes to take place, and several other statutory provisions relating to the meetings of various authorities and public access to them are similarly amended. Basically, a meeting is ‘open to the public’ (and to the press) if there is provision for remote (online) access. Background papers, and minutes or other records of meetings may be published on the authority’s website or by such other means as the authority considers appropriate.
Although these regulations are intended to be only temporary, and were made in response to the current crisis, there are quite a few people who may take the view that they at last bring the law and practice on the conduct of local authority meetings into the 21st Century. Depending on the practical experience of operating these new meeting procedures, the current regulations could be the precursor of more permanent arrangements for the more flexible conduct of local authority meetings in future. It will be interesting to see what elected members and the public make of the operation of the new rules over the next year or so.
© MARTIN H GOODALL
Hi Martin
ReplyDeleteIn general this is clearly welcome, and as you say, may help deliver some much needed modernisation more generally.
I have two fairly minor concerns I'd welcome your insight on.
First is Reg 4(5) and an itch about parliament overriding local authority sovereignty. In other circumstances would all be so enthusiastic about this?
Second is whether Reg 4(1) has the effect of removing or negating any requirement to publish reports prior to a meeting. Would this reg not allow an [unscrupulous] LPA to e.g. publish a planning agenda today, then immediately ['without further notice'] reschedule the meeting to 'now' effectively preventing the public from attending by dint of surprise?
And, a bonus thought, I believe I've seen cases where an LPA has had a decision quashed on the basis of non-compliance with their SCI. If an SCI describes the conduct and arrangement of planning committees etc would this issue not still be relevant?
I don’t necessarily read the Regs in the way Richard W suggests. The Regs are not intended to limit public participation, access to agendas and background papers, etc. , but it has to be recognised that in the present emergency, it may not be practicable to preserve the same level of public involvement as the primary legislation envisages. I don’t see this as extending beyond the present emergency.
DeleteI suspect that the quashing of a planning decision by the High Court on the ground of failure to comply with full public participation in these circumstances is unlikely, bearing in mind that this would remain in the discretion of the court, notwithstanding any 'technical' breach of the normal rules.
I have felt we were hugely let down when Eric Pickles dissolved the Standards Board for England in 2011 leaving the officers of the council and the public with no real teeth regarding councillor behaviour and bullying.
ReplyDeleteIt was a further tragedy that he did not also make it compulsory that all planning meetings were videoed and available as webcasts. This has been instigated by many councils but some still refuse to expose their elected members to any real scrutiny and accountability.
Pickles stated at the time,"What have they to hide?" but clearly many Councillors cannot bear to lose the power they wield over planning issues. They have subsequently needed to be more and more disciplined by government with threats of special measures if too many applications end up as dismissed at appeal.
It is obvious that the elected members will now go to extraordinary lengths to ensure an application is refused by planners rather than by their decision at committee. Hence the manipulation of officers so the pre-planning process can provide totally misleading advice to then ensure a proposal can be stopped at officer stage even though the only issue/constraint was design, as has just happened to us.
It would be somewhat of a positive gain if as a result of this ghastly pandemic and the consequences of the need for social distancing we actually got a less corrupt planning service. Perhaps also one that improved the standards of the built environment in this country too as a bonus!
As said, this is going to change the outdated form of planning meetings. For councils like this one who have resisted the webcasting of meetings for over a decade, it's a gift. After all, heaven forbid, they do not want more exposure so that many more of the public can actually see them in action. Many might not feel so inclined to vote for them if they did!
ReplyDeleteThis was in the local paper.
[But in moving the process online, the council has drawn up new rules which mean applicants, their agents, town and parish council representatives and members of the public will no longer be able to address the committee.
Instead, written submissions must be submitted five days in advance, and will be read out by the council’s solicitor at the meeting.]
I'm not convinced these virtual meetings will be remotely democratic. Councillors have behaved so badly, even vindictively in meetings I have attended and they manage to circumvent clear addressing of issues such as the strong likelihood of the influence of a personal agenda of a particular councillor by less public awareness. One can also see for oneself blatant ignoring of the guidance from officers and legal advice of their council without any definable reasoning.
We did win costs on that occasion on Appeal but what if more of the public saw this sort of behaviour and started to question their elected members, their impartiality and motives?
That would be at least somewhat more democratic.
The pandemic has been a gift to find yet a further way to avoid public scrutiny and I can sadly see it being made permanent.