Agenda and draft minutes

To appoint a Chair from North Devon Council to replace Councillor Walker on the Joint Committee following the meeting of Annual Council on 27^th March 2024 when her membership of the Joint Committee ceased.

NOTE: This appointment will be for a period up until when the appointments for the Chair and Vice Chair will cease and new appointments will need to made. These appointments will be considered after the 10^th August 2024 when they expire and new appointments will need to be made.

RESOLVED, that Councillor Denton be appointed Chair of the Joint Committee.

The appointment would be for a period up until when the appointments for the Chair and Vice Chair would cease and new appointments would need to made.

The appointment would be considered after the 10th August 2024 when it expired and new appointments would need to be made.

Councillor Denton took the Chair.

There were no apologies for absence made.

RESOLVED, that the minutes of the meeting held on 25^th January 2024 (circulated previously) be approved as a correct and signed by the Chair.

Please telephone the Corporate and Community Services team to prepare a form for your signature before the meeting. Interests must be re-declared when the item is called. A declaration of interest under the Code of Conduct will be a Disclosable Pecuniary Interest, an Other Registrable Interest or a Non-Registrable Interest.  If the item directly relates to your interest you must declare the interest and leave the room for the item, save in the case of Other Registrable Interests or Non-Registrable Interests where you may first speak on the item as a member of the public if provision has been made for the public to speak.  If the matter does not directly relate to your interest but still affects it then you must consider whether you are affected to a greater extent than most people and whether a reasonable person would consider your judgement to be clouded, if you are then you must leave the room for the item (although you may speak as a member of the public if provision has been made for the public to speak) or, if you are not, then you can declare the interest but still take part).

There were no declarations of interest announced.

The Committee considered a report by the Building Control Manager (circulated previously) regarding the Building Control Business update.

He outlined the main areas of the report, which were under the following headings:

• Key Performance Indicators 2022/2023.
• Key Performance Indicators 2023/2024.
• Resources.
• Internal Audit.
• Building Control Charges.
• Building Safety Regulator Hourly Rate.
• Validation Process and Building Safety Regulator Registration.
• Training Logs and Plans.
• Building Safety Regulator Registration Deadline Delayed.
• Upgrade to Uniform Building Safety Regulator Module.
• Performance Standard Reporting.
• LABC ISO Framework.
• Partnership Priorities.

He drew the Joint Committee’s attention to the following key points within the report:

• Performance was on target and whilst there were certain areas which were better performing than others, it was consistent as the figures below showed.
• Decisions taken within two months was at 98% against a target of 95%, plan examination response times with applications being examined within 3 weeks was at 83% against a target of 95% and the average time to first response was 17 days against a target of 10 days.
• There was an error on page 15 of the report regarding the total number of application numbers comparison at the end of quarter 4 for the year 2020/21, which stated that there had been 1303 applications received when in actual fact there had been1035 applications received.
• Improvement in the three week and time to first response KPIs remained the partnership’s long term target but the significant additional workload being created implementing and undertaking the administration of the Building Safety Regulator regime changes meant that any improvement in the processing times were unlikely and it was anticipated performance in relation to these targets was likely to drop rather than improve in the following two quarters.
• The partnership’s share of completions in the Housing Market was low at 18% and this reflected the decreased activity that the partnership had experienced in the area of submitted new housing applications in the past two years. It was also a reflection on the rate of development slowing on sites that the Partnership was overseeing.
• Developers had been scaling back building operations as they had been unable to sell completed houses in the recent economic conditions.
• At the last Joint Committee, general Market Share was reported for Quarter 3 2023/24 at 80%. For Quarter 4, Market Share had settled back and sat on target at 75% which gave the Partnership an average of 74% Market Share for the financial year.
• It was reported at the last Committee Meeting, total application numbers were at a lower level than the total number of applications received at the same point in previous years, but having reviewed the end of year figures, applications numbers for 2023-24 appeared to have recovered in the final quarter and were on a par with 2019-20; 2020-21; and an improvement on 2022-23 figures.
• It has also been apparent that among the applications being submitted since the New Year there had been an increase in larger domestic projects, more commercial work and increased activity in the  ...  view the full minutes text for item 5.

·       Thursday 25^th July 2024 at 10:00am in the Barum Room.

·       Thursday 24^th October 2024 at 10:00am in the Barum Room.

·       Thursday 23^rd January 2025 at 10:00am in the Barum Room.

(NOTE: Unless otherwise agreed the Joint Committee must meet at least on a quarterly basis with the meeting held at 10.00am and the offices of the Chairman’s partner authority).

RESOLVED, that the following proposed dates for the Joint Committee meetings for 2024/25 be agreed:

a)    Thursday 25th July 2024 at 10:00am.

b)    Thursday 24th September 2024 at 10:00am.

c)    Thursday 23rd January 2025 at 10:00am.