Planning maintains improved customer satisfaction levels

This is similar to the previous year’s result of 63% but is still a large improvement on the levels recorded in the 2006 and 2008 surveys (42% and 32% respectively).

In total, over 1,000 customers from across Northern Ireland responded to the survey, providing feedback on a range of service provision areas. These included information obtained from Planning, the quality of advice received from Planning, customer experience of dealing with various aspects of service provision, as well as overall level of satisfaction.

The headline figures from the 2010/11 survey are:

Overall Customer Satisfaction

In total, 61% of respondents were ‘satisfied / very satisfied’, with the overall service they received by Planning during 2010/11. This is similar to the findings of the customer satisfaction survey covering 2009/10 (63% satisfied overall). However, there are significant differences between the views of agents and the views of personal applicants. Of those agents who responded, 47% were ‘satisfied/very satisfied’ compared with 75% of applicants who were ‘satisfied/very satisfied.

Number of applications for planning permission submitted

Over two fifths (45%) of respondents submitted one application only in 2010/11. Of this, 89% were applicants and 11% were agents. Under a half (46%) of agents submitted between 2 and 10 planning applications in 2010/11 while over one third (35%) submitted between 11 and 50 applications. A further 8% submitted between 51 and 100 and the remainder (2%) submitted over 100.

Information obtained from Planning

Around seven in ten (69%) respondents reported that they had obtained information from the Planning website, published guidance/information leaflets, and/or divisional offices/staff, etc before submitting an application. Of these, the vast majority (93%) rated the information received as satisfactory or better.

Length of time to receive a decision

Over one third of respondents (34%) received a decision on their most recent planning application in 2010/11 within 4 months of submitting it. Fifteen percent of respondents said that they had to wait over 12 months to receive a decision on their most recent planning application in that year.

Type of planning application

Again considering the most recent application made by customers in 2010/11:

The vast majority were for residential development (79%). Of these, 49% were to build a single house, 42% were for some form of domestic extension, and 9% were for more than one house. Applicants were more likely to manage a planning application for an extension than an agent (64% and 36% respectively). Just over half (53%) of applications for a single house were dealt with by an agent. Only 9% of applications were for more than one house. Of these, the majority (72%) were handled by an agent.

Experience of dealing with various aspects of service provision

In terms of the speed of dealing with telephone enquiries, 64% of respondents thought it was satisfactory or better and 65% were at least satisfied with the ability of planning staff to deal with their enquiry. The response time with regard to written correspondence was judged as poor by two fifths (40%) of respondents with less than a quarter (24%) rating it as good. When asked to consider the professionalism of staff, over four in five (82%) respondents thought it was satisfactory or better.

Advice received from Planning

The quality of advice received from Planning was rated as satisfactory or better by approaching three quarters (73%) of respondents, with slightly lower proportions considering its clarity (70%) and comprehensiveness (68%) to be satisfactory or better. The length of time to get advice was felt to be poor by around four in ten (42%) respondents.

Service improvement between 2009/10 and 2010/11

Over two thirds (68%) of respondents had used Planning in the year prior to 2010/11. Of these, a little over half (52%) felt the service was the same, one third (33%) felt it was worse while 15% felt it was better.

Planning Website

Around three quarters (74%) of respondents had visited the Planning website with the vast majority of these (87%) rating it as satisfactory or better.

Complaints about service provided by Planning

Just over a quarter (27%) of respondents said that they had complained about an aspect of the service provided by Planning. Of those who had complained about Planning, around four in five (79%) were not satisfied with the way the complaint was handled.

1. This is the latest Planning Customer Satisfaction Survey in a series which began in 1998. It usually runs biennially but was repeated in 2010/11 having also ran in 2009/10.

2. The findings are based on 1,032 returns received from a survey of all Planning customers (3,324) who had a decision issued on a planning application in 2010/11. This represents a response rate of 31%. Customers were identified using the data extract used for the Annual Statistical Bulletin 2010/11.

3. The representativeness of survey respondents was checked against geographic location of planning office, applicant type (i.e., agent v applicant) and a proxy measure for application type (i.e., major, intermediate or minor). This identified a potential under-representation of respondents whose last application was a major application. Given that satisfaction levels with such applications are generally lower than with other types, this should be borne in mind when interpreting the findings although any impact from this is estimated to be small.

4. The results are based on a sample of all Planning customers in 2010/11 and are therefore subject to a degree of sampling error. The overall recorded customer satisfaction rate of 61% is subject to a sampling error of +/- 3%. This result is not statistically different to the 63% overall satisfaction rate achieved in 2009/10.

5. The full version of the report is due to be published in May 2012 and will provide much more detailed breakdowns of the headline results, supported by charts and tabular data, and will also include additional trend information.

The full report will be available from 9:30 on 24th May 2012 at: http://www.planningni.gov.uk/common-eplanning-stats-publications.htm

6. Electronic copies of the ‘Planning Customer Satisfaction Survey 2010/11 – Headline Figures’ are available at: http://www.planningni.gov.uk/common-eplanning-stats-publications.htm

Hard copies are available free of charge from the Department of the Environment, Millennium House, 17 - 25 Great Victoria Street, Belfast BT2 7BN

Telephone: (028) 9041 6700
E-mail: planning.service.hq@doeni.gov.uk
Website: http://www.planningni.gov.uk

7. All media enquiries should be directed to DOE Press Office 028 9025 6058 or for out of office hours, contact the duty press officer on pager 07699 715 440 and your call will be returned.