Customer service and the planning system: a research study

6 Conclusions

Defining and better understanding customers of the planning system

A clearer picture is needed of who, precisely, are the customers within the planning system, how they engage and interact with the system and similarities/differences in their needs and expectations.

By fully understanding 'the customer', planning authorities should be able to better plan for and tailor their service accordingly. Linked to this, there appears to be an appetite for an interactive 'Customer Journey' tool which could help to set national expectations for customers, as well as clarifying their rights and responsibilities.

A need for greater emphasis on customer service within the planning performance framework

There is a case for the Scottish Government (Planning and Architecture Division) to consider placing more emphasis on customer service through the planning performance framework.

Achieving this would require consultation with planning authorities across Scotland to agree on the current issues, available resources and to ensure strong buy-in to the rationale and shape of any changes made. Introducing new customer-focused performance measures could go some way to improving national consistency in service quality.

Improving consistency in how customer service is delivered and measured

There is a need for greater consistency of customer service, which could be achieved through:

1) clearer guidance for planning authorities to minimise disparities in interpretation of specific aspects of legislation; and

2) developing a national customer survey for planning (for which there is warm support) that asks common perceptual questions of customers across all authorities in Scotland.

Developing and running a national survey could potentially help to create a level playing field in how customer service is measured, permit unbiased analysis and reporting, and provide a baseline for performance benchmarking and annual improvement tracking by the Scottish Government. Planning authorities would want to be closely involved in the survey question design and the building standards survey could be used as a starting point since this has already been informed by desk research of good practice.

It would seem sensible that any such national customer survey for planning is externally commissioned to capitalise on resources available from a specialist agency to facilitate the survey and local reporting. This would help to minimise the resource and cost burden on planning authorities although some human and IT resources would be needed to keep a clear log of customer data, including names, contact details and the nature/value of their application to enable survey results to be cross-tabulated in different ways.

This approach would require local authorities to share their contact details with the independent agency so that the agency can invite them to take part. This would be compliant with GDPR due to the customer research being in customers' legitimate interests, however, it would require planning authorities to explain how customers' data is used in a GDPR-compliant Privacy Policy.

Important considerations ahead of deciding on a national survey should be what the implications are for existing local survey activity run by Councils. Some may stop in favour of the national survey, while others may continue since they get good value from the feedback they receive. Whilst there is clearly an exacerbated risk of survey fatigue by running a combination of national and local surveys, planning authorities should not be discouraged from using their own methods if they find these valuable, but a national survey could be more readily relied upon for consistently worked out performance scores.

Sharing good practice in customer service

The Scottish Government and Heads of Planning Scotland have a role to play in helping to advocate and promote good practice sharing across the current benchmarking groups.

There are mixed views among planning authorities as to the relative merits of national standards and accreditations for customer service, therefore local authorities that have completed or are progressing towards their accreditation, would be well placed to speak to others.

A good example is the 'Customer Service Excellence' ( CSE) standard which has been tried and tested by a number of local authorities in Scotland, including some building standards services and planning services. Those that have achieved CSE are generally proud of this status as evidence to internal colleagues and customers of the level of customer commitment offered.