Choose which Policy Indicators go in AMRs? - Public forum - Planning Advisory Service (PAS)

Hi Les, We too are currently working on redefining which indicators we monitor as we move towards the end of the Core Strategy process (we're currently consulting on main modifications to the plan). Ironically, it looks like we'll be increasing the number and the breadth of indicators that we'll be monitoring from now on to understand the effectiveness of the framework of policies within our (hopefully!) soon-to-be adopted plan. I expect that this puts us firmly in the minority of councils given the more relaxed approach the current Government has adopted towards monitoring in general. Without being too unkind, we were starting from a low base however with many indicators on particular topics in past AMR's typically unreported from year-to-year - so there was/is definitely scope for improvement in this area of our work! But yes, I would certainly encourage only monitoring those indicators that are absolutely integral in forming an understanding of how specific policies are performing and their influence on the plan's main spatial objectives. Our Core Strategy sets out as part of each policy (in a tabular format) a spatial target, all relevant indicators and how the target will be delivered. To me this is simple, yet effective and with it passing through the hearing sessions without comment, either from objectors or Inspector, it seems to be an acceptable approach to monitoring the overall plan.

I've meant to chip in on this for a while. As Adam suggests above, it is certainly likely that an adopted Core Strategy with an effective Monitoring Framework will increase the number of indicators monitored. Personally, I still think the PAS / old PPS12 Guidance is highly relevant in principle when developing a Monitoring Framework to make sure you don't include anything where data is clearly difficult to obtain or update on a [more-or-less] annual basis. In developing the indicators, we noted that the most important information still needed was on housing, business and environmental matters very similar to those in the COIs; with a bit of effort we have accurately reported most of these for a number of years with good longitudinal data series. Our approach, both in the Monitoring Framework and in advance of any opportunity to adopt the CS has been to draw from the old COI methodology to ensure relevant data series are kept up to date. Therefore, in our last AMR we largely renamed the old COIs as our 'Key Output Indicators'. This received a hearty chuckle at our recent Examination. However, the important thing is this is key information that we can already accurately report and that is useful before any policies are adopted. The consistent series of information was extremely useful with regards some of our objectives and evidence base. Some areas have been trimmed (especially BfL assessments that have always proved tricky) and these will be re-incorporated or bulked out from the Monitoring Framework as possible - e.g. to monitor Strategic Sites.

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