Dedicated S106 Monitoring officer? - Public forum - Planning Advisory Service (PAS)

Hi, at Bracknell S106 compliance is shared amongst 2 officers - who do other things (but not DC/Planning Application casework). So a degree of specialism but not one dedicated officer. For straightforward S106s we seek £300-£600 for compliance monitoring. (generates about £10k/yr), Less straightforward, more complex S106s are dealt with on merit

In Bristol, we have had a dedicated Section 106 Monitoring Officer since March 2002. We levy a Monitoring Fee of the equivalent of 15% of the planning application fee for each Section 106 Agreement, which over the past 7 years has almost exactly covered our costs. Feel free to give me a ring on (0117) 903 6724 if you would like any further information about our approach.

At Cambridge City Council, we have one full time planning obligations implementation and monitoring officer on a fixed term contract until 2011. The post is situated within the Planning Investigations and Monitoring Team. Our revised 2004 Planning Obligation Strategy, due to be approved in 2007 has been held up owing to staff resources and in the revised Strategy it was proposed to introduce monitoring fees of £300 per financial clause and £600 per non-financial clause within each Agreement. Because of the delay in producing a revised Strategy, no monitoring fees have been sought but it is hoped to commence charging once the revised Strategy has been approved hopefully in January 2010.

I am known as the Planning Obligations Officer and have been in post for almost a year. Several authorities in Surrey adopted Planning Infrastructure Contributions for additional dwellings and there is a 5% addition to it for monitoring (4% here and 1% County). This makes the role self-financing although I can't quote figures and my salary has remained he same as when I was a Planning Technician. I only spend half the week on S106 and the other half on the LLPG. We also have 5% on our Special Protection Area agreements but at present the add hoc Agreements do not attract a fee but this is historical and is being looked at. My main role is to collect/chase monies and audit the spend. Barry Honeywill Planning Obligations Officer Planning Services Direct dial 01483 523280 Email barry.honeywill@waverley.gov.uk

We have a dedicated Developer Funding Team (policy, negotiation & monitoring). On the monitoring side of the team we have 4 officers:- Planning Obligations Manager (Full Time) post created late 2004 Planning Obligations Officer (Full Time) post created late 2008 Developer Funding Support Assistant (50% post) post created early 2008 Developer Funding Support Assistant (68% post) post created early 2003 The reason we have a large monitoring team is because we have an overarching role. We look after everything to do with the agreements including all the financial transactions we do not use a finance time for anything. We supply the relevant information to our services areas, all the service areas have to do is decided on how they would like to spend the money, there is no monitoring to be done by them we record it all. We charge a monitoring fee for each completed agreement based on the financial value of the agreement and this is on an increasing scale. Our target is that the monitoring fees cover one post. This is because the other posts were funded in the base budget. We are on target for this. You may want to discuss with you finance team how you show the monitoring fee in you accounts, as the fee is technically to be used to fund staff over the life of the agreement i.e. 5+ years. Don’t assume that the money taken this year should be used in this year. Amounts should be set aside to help fund future years. If you would like to see our scale of charges please let me know.

We have no dedicated full-time S106 officer other than what I do. I effectively administer the S106 database to record agreements, triggers etc... As my role is also as a planning officer, then I perform the S106 duties in a part-time fashion, this could vary from a couple of hours to 20 hours a week. However, we are under review and it is recognised that a dedicated full-time S106 officer is required commencing on a part-time basis (25hr week) then possibly full-time in the furture. Based upon my experience in post then I believe a full-time post is essential from the outset. Currently we do not charge for monitoring, although it is being considered.

Hi, I am the Planning Obligations Monitoring Officer at the London Borough of Sutton, previously I worked alongside my manager who was the s106 Development Officer. I am responsible for monitoring all the obligations contained in the agreements and he was responsible for monitoring the spend among other duties. I am now monitoring spend. I think that there is an excellent case to be made for having a full time monitoring officer. In my opinion it is essential in order to keep abreast of what is happening on all agreements. In relation to the funding of the post, our borough currently charges a monitoring fee on agreements depending on the amount of funds that are due to come from the agreement. Currently, our S106 Obligations Supplementary Planning Document states that this would be 2.5% of the total amount of contributions, if the total amount of contributions asked for is £10,000 or more. This covers the cost of my post. I hope that this helps. If you have any further queries, please do not hesitate to call on me 02087706489 or to email me: bridget.galloway@sutton.gov.uk.

At Gloucester, S106 monitoring undertaken by me alone as 40% of my post as Senior Planning Compliance Officer. Monitoring fees set at £350 per simple unilateral, £750 per main clause of Legal Agreements, some room for negotiation. This was agreed by committee. As part of your work would be useful for you to compile a 'gains list' which I have split into the following sections a) interest sought and received on late payments b) bad debt - those debts outstanding for more than a year but received as a result of your intervention c) as with b - but between 3 months to a year. In Gloucester I was able to demonstrate post had secured a lost £1/2m in just 3 years, and helped justify my post becoming permanent from an original fixed term. Let me know if you want copies of any papers etc put together as part of the above (01452 396774)

I work for Plymouth City Council monitoring 106 agreements, which is my sole task at the moment. Although I work part time I have always had part time support from an admin assistant and a planning assistant. All of my salary and part of the salaries of the admin assistant and planning assistant are covered by a management fee charged at 5% of financial obligations within each agreement as set out by our Planning Obligations SPD adopted at the end of 2008, available online at http://www.plymouth.gov.uk/homepage/environmentandplanning/planning/planningpolicy/ldf/spds/ldfplanningobligations.htm Please feel free to contact me for further information jody.leigh@plymouth.gov.uk

We do not have a dedicated S106 Officer. However, I work as a part-time Legal Admin Officer and part of my role is to complete standard S106s for recreational amenities for minor developments and to monitor/chase obligations for S106 Agreements; the (Colchester BC) S106 database supports this. We do receive legal fees but do not currently charge monitoring fees. Our S106 work is currently being reviewed.