DCLG Planning obligations: practice guidance - Public forum - Planning Advisory Service (PAS)

The Audit Commission has also published the results of their research into s106 agreements. The documents are available to download here: http://www.audit-commission.gov.uk/planning/s106.asp?page=index.asp&area=hplink Best wishes, John.

Please can you tell me if you know of any authorities that are generally held to demonstrate good practice in the area of s106 agreements and developer contributions. The reason behind this request is that I am supporting a Scrutiny Review looking at how successfully our Council negotiates over its s106 agreements and generally manages planning obligations, and as part of this inquiry would very much like to visit another authority that does this particularly well, for comparative purposes. Preferably a County Council rather than a unitary but any will do. At present I am struggling to find a way to identify a good council. A contact at the IDeA (who seemed reluctant to name names) suggested I try using the forum to see what other users thought. Does anyone have any suggestions? Yours in hopeful anticipation, matt

Matt, I would be interested in seeing a copy of your final report, perhaps you could place a link on this forum at the appropriate time? Officers responsible for s106 monitoring would I am sure like to see what systems work best in other authorities and be keen to have access to these with a view to improving their own information systems? Our s106 information is currently stored on Excel spreadsheet and not that user-friendly, so I am looking to make improvements and convert to a database that will record information from pre-application stage right through to implementation and enable effective performance monitoring. Is anyone willing to use this forum to 'showcase' their s106 information framework? It will I am sure generate a good deal of interest! Any offers?

Thanks John, for the notification of the DCLG and Audit Commission publications ~ these are useful. Thanks too Keith, for your interest in our Scrutiny Review - I certainly can place a link to the finished report once completed but please don't hold your breath though - it won't be ready until next year! I should point out that we are looking at good practice in much wider terms more just the information system (though this will of course be of interest). Whilst on the information issue, I have learnt that we (in Oxfordshire) are hoping to make our s106 database more widely available via our intranet, and that Colchester Council was cited as a good authority for the use of its database. We are keen to try and (informally) benchmark against other criteria too, such as size of negotiating team, use of standard charging, strength and experience of negotiators, quality of internal processes, total obligatioins secured, etc. I would still very much welcome readers views as to any authorties felt to be high performing in the area of s106 agreements. Anyone out there with any ideas as to which councils do well?

Folks may or may not have seen the commentary at http://planningmatter.blogspot.com/ (scroll down to 'Dissent on s106 model') that picks up on criticism of the model agreements coverage of affordable housing from Sharpe Pritchard at: http://www.sharpepritchard.co.uk/images/cms/pdf/JH010906.pdf

Thanks for all the useful web sites, I am planning to do a reseach paper for my final year at Reading university on S.106 agreements. Any help will be gratefully received