Key information
Executive summary
Decision
Expenditure of up to £373,000 in 2019/20 on Phase 2 of the project to create an updated, automated London Development Database. In combination with Phase 1 covered by MD2390, the full expenditure for this project is £523,000.
The costs for Phase 2 are as follows:
£99,000 – staff; and
£274,000 – systems.
Part 1: Non-confidential facts and advice
The Greater London Authority Act 1999 places responsibility for strategic planning in London on the Mayor and requires him to produce a strategic spatial strategy for London, and to keep it under review.
Since 2004 the effectiveness of that spatial strategy has been monitored through the London Development Database and reported through an annual monitoring report. The process requires each of the planning authorities in London to review each permission they grant and report permissions for developments which:
• Create or lose 1 or more dwellings;
• Result in a change of use of more than 1000m2; or
• Result in the loss or gain of public open space.
This data is collected and entered into the current London Development Database (LDD) through a web portal, often manually, and checked by GLA officers.
The data is collected at the following stages:
• When permission is granted;
• When the development commences; and
• When the development is completed.
Data is also collected on when a planning permission expires unimplemented.
Whilst still the only database of its kind - and ground breaking for its time - technology, the planning process, and the development industry have since moved on, not least in the expectations that data will be collected to enable the effectiveness of policies and development on the ground to be assessed much more comprehensively than the limited dataset above.
The Mayor’s draft London Plan is soon to be adopted and the limitations of the current LDD mean that the effectiveness of this critical policy document on non-referable schemes will not be measurable for over a year, if not 18 months, after the policy document has been agreed and published. This is because the manual nature of data collection creates a delay between what is happening on the ground or in the planning system, and when that activity is picked up by monitoring officers and reported to the GLA.
The GLA also has other projects that rely on the LDD for their effectiveness, in particular the London Infrastructure Mapping Application, the soon to be launched accessible housing register, and the work of the City Intelligence team on demographics, schools, and other social infrastructure. The LDD’s current limitations constrain the effectiveness of these tools and analysis.
Specialist services are required therefore, to enable the LDD to be updated to meet the GLA’s London Plan and other needs efficiently.
The update of the London Development Database will address these issues by automating the collection of monitoring data for all planning application types.
This request for a Mayoral Decision aligns with the Smarter London Together roadmap and the GLA’s wider work stream regarding Digital Planning. The project will be delivered to meet the criteria of the Local Digital Declaration of which the GLA is a signatory.
The development of a new system has been informed by a discovery exercise where GLA staff visited 26 Local Planning Authorities (LPAs) in early 2018 to identify: how they currently complete LDD requirements; their existing back office systems and management practices; the cost of the status quo; the quality of the data they provide; and issues they face completing the requirements. A summary of this research can be found at https://medium.com/@SmartLondon/improving-london-wide-planning-data-wha…
The objectives of the automation of the London Development Database are to:
• Have a clear, up to date and robust evidence base to prepare new planning policies and make decisions on planning applications;
• Reduce the cost of collecting development data for Londoners and local planning authorities; and
• Provide a clearer, more transparent picture of what is happening on the ground for Londoners, SMEs, Government, and others interested in London’s growth.
The outputs of this project are:
• A central register of all planning applications submitted within the GLA area with key monitoring data in machine-readable format; and
• A dataset that will inform decisions, with published tools to enable Londoners to analyse the data.
There are likely to be other benefits from the delivery of this automation, including:
• E-alert notifications for Londoners of all developments that might affect them, regardless of borough boundaries, enabling boroughs to move away from written neighbour notification letters;
• Opportunities for businesses to innovate based on the live data feed of information, which we hope will stimulate new markets and opportunities for business;
• Enabling smoother delivery of housing by collecting data that allows the GLA to accurately monitor how much is being built, and to assess any blockers in the planning system that may be slowing it down; and
• Encouraging boroughs to use the connected levels of information to undertake more specific monitoring of developments and generate faster payment of the Community Infrastructure Levy and policing of building regulations.
The public-sector equality duty (PSED) under section 149 of the Equality Act 2010 requires the identification and evaluation of the likely potential impacts, both positive and negative, of the decision on those with protected characteristics. The Mayor is to have due regard to the need to eliminate unlawful discrimination, harassment and victimisation as well as to advance equality of opportunity and foster good relations between people who share a protected characteristic and those who do not. This may involve, in particular, removing or minimising any disadvantage suffered by those who share a relevant protected characteristic and taking steps to meet the needs of such people. In certain circumstances compliance with the Act may involve treating people with a protected characteristic more favourably than those without it. The GLA will take appropriate steps to identify any potential negative impacts expected on those with protected characteristics.
The project is unlikely to have a direct impact on any persons whether they have any protected characteristics or not. Further consideration will be given to how the data collected could be later utilised to benefit protected groups. For example, the data collected could be used to inform individuals with accessible housing need of the available pipeline of accommodation. However much of the impact is dependent on how this data is published, and best practices will be implemented to ensure accessibility.
Mayoral Priorities
There are a number of the Mayoral strategies that this project seeks to support.
The draft London Plan
Chapter 12 of the draft London Plan includes the requirement for monitoring the implementation of the Plan. This currently sets out 12 Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that will be reported on annually as part of the obligation to produce an annual monitoring report. This project seeks to automate a number of these KPIs, enable live time reporting, and support the organisation in being more agile in how it responds to and monitors policy change.
The Housing Strategy
This strategy recognises the importance of the London Development Database and commits to enhancing its capabilities. This project addresses the lack of quality information that the Housing Strategy needs to deliver its overall objectives.
Smarter London Together roadmap
One of the key objectives of this roadmap is to support the GLA in leading digital innovation, and use that role to build trust and transparency in how public data is used. This starts with the following initiatives:
- Leadership in design and common standards to put users at the heart of what we do
- Exploring new civic platforms to better engage citizens and communities
- Opening up data, including real time metrics, to drive better decision making across the city
- Joint working across public bodies to deliver digital transformation
This project addresses these objectives by standardising planning information and data. Presenting it in a standard format that will be published and analysable on a new public platform will enable communities to engage with the impacts of development in a far more effective way.
Economic Development Strategy
The strategy puts the need for data at the heart of its objectives and recognises that the availability of data will unlock informed decision making, as well as stimulate new innovative opportunities for business and services that are more responsive and inclusive to address Londoners’ needs. The strategy also envisages the need for this data as a tool to enable more joined up working between infrastructure providers.
This project provides the dataset envisaged as a starting point to deliver these objectives.
Project Costs
The projected costs for the delivery of this project in phase two are as follows:
Staff requirements, in addition to existing resources (fixed term):
Senior Project Officer (Grade 8/9): To manage project implementation - £59,000 x 2/3 (8 months): £39,000.
2 Delivery Officers (Grade 6/7): To work with boroughs—e.g. coordinating to update systems, agree validation list changes, etc. - £45,000 x 2 officers x 2/3 (8 months) = £60,000.
Total staff costs for Phase 2: £99,000.
The three positions to be created above will be recruited in accordance with all GLA staffing protocols.
Systems costs:
Upgrade borough systems to same level: £32,000
£1,000-10,000 per borough (as different boroughs are at different stages of readiness)
For: back office system changes, true automation with Planning Portal or equivalent.
Planning Portal changes: £25,000
For: altering fields in Planning Portal to reflect new local validations lists.
Back Office System transformation: £67,000
For: altering fields; improving ease of data extracts.
LDD Re-write: £50,000
For: completing coding on new LDD interface, including building in automation capacity.
New Hub: £100,000
For: web development to create new public hub for planning data.
Total systems costs: £274,000.
Total project costs for phase 2: £373,000
*Please note that in combination with MD2390 the total cost of this project in phases 1 and 2 is £523,000, of which £100,000 has now been secured from MHCLG.
Risks and Issues
There are a number of key risks to the delivery of this project, these include:
The proposed expenditure of £373,000 for phase 2 on the London Development Database and Live Data Hub will be a combination of capital and revenue expenditure scheduled for the 2019-20 financial-year.
The proposed capital expenditure of £174,000 will be funded via a draw-down from the Capital Programme Reserve.
The proposed revenue expenditure of £199,000 will funded from the Growth & Infrastructure budget (£49,000), specifically via the income received for the Infrastructure Mapping Application as approved by MD2162; and via a drawdown from the Pre-Application Planning Reserve (£150,000).
The sections above indicate that the decisions requested fall within the statutory powers under section 30 of the Greater London Authority Act 1999 (as amended) (“the Act”) to do anything to promote the improvement of the environment in Greater London; and in formulating the proposals in respect of which a decision is sought officers have complied with the Authority’s related statutory duties to:
(a) Pay due regard to the principle that there should be equality of opportunity for all people;
(b) Consider how the proposals will affect:
i. The health of persons in Greater London,
ii. The health inequalities between persons living in Greater London;
iii. The achievement of sustainable development in the United Kingdom; and
iv. Climate change, and the consequences of climate change; and
(c) Consult with appropriate bodies.
Section 34 of the Act also gives the Mayor the authority to do anything which is calculated to facilitate, or is conducive or incidental to the exercise of any of the statutory functions of the Authority. Section 334 of the Act requires the Mayor to prepare and publish a spatial development strategy (known as the London Plan). Section 339 of the Act requires the Mayor to keep the London Plan under review, especially matters which may be expected to affect the development of Greater London or the planning of its development. In this case, the decision to undertake this project and update the London Development Database may reasonably be regarded as facilitating, being conducive or incidental to the exercise of the powers detailed above.
In taking the decision requested, the Mayor must have due regard to the Public Sector Equality Duty; namely the need to eliminate discrimination, harassment, victimisation and any other conduct prohibited by the Equality Act 2010, and to advance equality of opportunity and foster good relations between persons who share a relevant protected characteristic (race, disability, gender, age, sexual orientation, religion or belief, pregnancy and maternity and gender reassignment) and persons who do not (section 149 of the Equality Act 2010). To this end, the Mayor should have particular regard to section 3 (above) of this report.
Should the Mayor be minded to make the decision sought officers must ensure:
- That the services required are procured by Transport for London Commercial Procurement who will determine the detail of the procurement strategy to be adopted in accordance with the GLA’s Contracts and Funding Code and appropriate contracts are put in place between and executed by the GLA and successful bidders before the commencement of such services; and
- To the extent that the expenditure proposed involves GLA staffing matters, all relevant GLA staff protocols (including seeking Head of Paid Service approvals where applicable) are observed.
This project will require a number of changes to the planning process. These include:
• Amending the Mayoral agreement with the leaders of London’s Local Planning Authorities regarding the data collected;
• Working with 35 LPAs to amend their Local Validation Requirements Checklist;
• Updating the Planning Portal to collect the information required in machine readable form;
• Working with back office development management system providers to enable the automated collection of information;
• Establishing reporting mechanisms to extract the data from LPAs’ back office systems;
• Updating the London Development Database to receive automated data; and
• Developing a new portal that enables live data to be published with tools to help Londoners understand the data.
A project plan has been produced to reflect this.
This project includes eight distinct work streams that will be pursued concurrently. The anticipated timetable for delivery is as follows. Note that Phase 1 elements of the project have happened in the past, as funded by MD2390,
(Please note that the above workstream timelines include procurement periods since many of the streams will require independent procurement strategies.)
Signed decision document
MD2466 London Development Database Automation & Live Data Hub project