Planning Officer – Development Management

Temporary Planning Officer - Development Management

Reference no: Richmond & Wandsworth 6791-1

Pay rate: £18.59 per hour PAYE

Role Length: This opening assignment is for 12 weeks

A Planning Officer is required to deliver high quality, robust and transparent decision making within tight time frames to ensure that the Planning Service is recognised as delivering an excellent planning service for all our customers. To independently manage a caseload of a number of complex and/or high profile planning applications, pre-application advice requests and correspondence to agreed and identifiable time scales and delivering a well reasoned officer recommendation which delivers a successful planning outcome. To coach and supervise junior planning officers to help them acquire the skills and knowledge so they are able to be self-reliant in dealing with technical and people issues.

Key responsibilities:

• Work on a range of development management case work including, pre-application advice, the processing of planning applications, Certificate of Lawfulness, prior notification and advertisement applications, ensuring that these are effectively and efficiently carried out to identifiable deadlines in a manner that is consistent with planning policy and is successful in meeting corporate targets and objectives.
• Assess, negotiate and set out clear and robust recommendations in an accurate, well written officer report based on relevant planning policies and other material considerations.
• Maintain an up-to-date knowledge of relevant legislation and to take a proactive approach to relevant changes in legislation.
• Ensure that the electronic copy of the planning application, pre-application advice and correspondence is the master copy and that all electronic and paper copies of your own case work is up-to-date before any decision is made.
• Provide advice and guidance in response to planning best practice, procedure or policy within a legal/organisational policy framework.
• Ensure that service-wide and corporate performance indicators, targets and customer service standards are met for the full range of the workload.
• Lead on the preparation of evidence for written representation appeals.
• Initiate and participate in matters relating to compliance and enforcement matters and conflict resolution to ensure high quality innovative outcomes that reflect Council-wide objectives and policies.
• Ensure that the electronic copy of the planning application, pre-application advice and correspondence is the master copy and that all electronic and paper copies of own case work and that of the supervised staff is up-to-date before any decision is made

“Role Requirements” – to give yourself the maximum chance of success please try and ensure your CV addresses the following essential criteria:

Qualifications:

• A degree in planning or other appropriate professional qualification and a member of the RTPI or eligible for or working toward full membership.

Experience:

• Experience in local government policy work including preparation of development plan documents or equivalents.
• Minimum of 12 months recent experience in a similar role, or context and ideally within a public sector organisation.

Knowledge:

• Developing knowledge and understanding of Planning legislation, policy guidance and circulars, practice and case law and the ability to apply that knowledge in negotiating and delivering highly complex and high risk planning applications within agreed timeframes in order to deliver a responsive, high quality service at speed Development Management Service.
• Knowledge and understanding of effective customer relations and customer care practices.
• Understanding of the need to negotiate and deliver planning and other consent applications within agreed timeframes in order to deliver a responsive, high quality service at speed Development Management Service.

Skills:

• Clear understanding of IT systems generally including Microsoft Office, measuring software and planning database system and document management systems.
• Well developed inter-personal skills.
• Articulate in written and oral communication skills with particular reference to report and letter writing, public speaking, presentation skills and communicating with Members, the public, staff and other professionals.
• Ability to proactively support the team manager, including early corrective action to ensure key performance indicators, targets and customer services standards are met.
• Able to work effectively to meet challenging deadlines and manage competing and changing priorities.
• Experience of providing creative solutions to problem solving and demonstrating a “can-do” attitude to improvements in service delivery including solutions involving the web and I.T. systems .
• Ability to assist in identifying need for change and to introduce and manage changes designed to improve service delivery.
• Strong IT skills using Microsoft packages or equivalent (e.g. G Suite).

NB: Please feel free to apply to us direct via [email protected] by quoting the job reference and job title exactly. SEE DETAILS AT THE BOTTOM OF THIS AD.

If you have previously applied to one of our vacancies and have already sent the required supporting documentation to us, please make this clear when you re-apply as this will help speed up your application.

To help speed up the process of uploading your CV to the client we would suggest that you send us your CV in Word format (or equivalent) if possible, rather than as a PDF.

If you are successful in securing this role, please note that for the entire duration of this contract, regardless of extension you will be working this role at the PAYE rate that has been advertised. For absolute clarity, we only work on a PAYE basis, rather than entertaining umbrella pay terms, we do not offer Ltd/umbrella or outside IR35 rates. If you wish to understand PAYE vs Umbrella more, please let us know and we can send you some additional information for clarity.