To ask the Minister of the Environment what (i) consultation; and (ii) cost-benefit analysis has been undertaken regarding the proposals to relocate Planning Service staff to other parts of the Civil Service.

The Department’s Planning Service is currently experiencing a budgetary shortfall of just over £8m, mainly due to a significant reduction in planning fee income associated with a reduction in the number of planning applications being received. In light of this much reduced volume of planning applications and reduced income, the Planning Service is seeking to identify cost reduction measures which will help it to align staffing levels and costs more closely with work demands and revenue.

A report has been submitted to me on how Planning Service can live within its opening budget allocation which has identified 271 posts now considered surplus in terms of affordability.

I anticipate that the redeployment of 271 staff from Planning Service will be necessary to deliver the required scale of cost reductions. The Planning Service will reorganise to live within its budget and reprioritise resources to ensure key services to customers can be maintained and impact from the reduction in staff is minimised.

The Department is currently engaged in developing a Redeployment Scheme for all staff who will be becoming surplus in the near future. It is also developing a Regrading Scheme to enable Professional & Technical (P&T) planners to transfer voluntarily to the General Service discipline. This would open up the possibility of redeployment to vacancies across the NICS. P&T Planners cannot be required to regrade.

There are a number of stages to be completed including consultation with the Environment Committee, Corporate HR, the TUS, the staff affected, and other Departments who will be importing DOE staff before the formal process of redeploying staff from the Planning Service can commence.

I am confident however, that the Northern Ireland Civil Service should be able to manage the workforce reductions in the Planning Service through the redeployment of surplus staff either to other suitable posts in the DOE or in another NICS Department. While there may be costs associated with the redeployment of staff to new office locations, these costs are borne by the importing Department in line with the standard NICS Handbook provisions. It is not possible at this stage to estimate what these might be as the Department has no information about the posts its surplus staff may be asked to fill.

I will also ensure that the Department makes the appropriate representations to DFP for additional in year funding at the June Monitoring round. You may also wish to note that the Department has initiated a fundamental review of the nature and structure of the fees charged for planning services with the aim of ensuring that the fees charged for specific chargeable services are broadly consistent with the costs of providing those services.