Benefits

Being part of Open Digital Planning opens the door to working with a community who are passionate about modernising local planning services.

Working collaboratively to modernise planning services

Open Digital Planning began by exploring what might be possible through newly developed products and services. Working with a community of like-minded Local Planning Authorities, central government and technology companies, we have now evolved into a community committed to modernising planning technology, data and practices.

This year, we are working on an expanded offer for our members to help fast-track Local Planning Authorities on their service modernisation journey.

Benefits of our products

Faster, smarter services

Up to 50% of planning applications are invalid when a council receives them due to common errors. Good quality data publishing to the National Planning Data Platform, coupled with a submission service such as PlanX, which helps applicants to make sense of planning rules relevant to their project, make it more likely that a planning application will be valid.

We estimate that PlanX can prevent as much as 71% of invalid planning applications. We are measuring the performance of live services right now.

Continuous improvement, informed by evidence

Good product development is led by evidence. All project partners contribute to an active metrics working group. We keep a close eye on the performance of services to understand where improvements can be made and to support the business case for adoption.

All partners have benchmarked their data and we are collecting information about live services to test our assumptions. We publish updates on what we are learning as we go, including the results from improvement projects with established software providers in the future.

Our early results show:

The time taken to validate an application is reduced by around 30% when validating a planning application using our back office planning system (BOPS).
PlanX is currently demonstrating a 20% reduction in the number of Lawful Development Certificate applications that are invalid on submission.
PlanX and BOPS products are processing all application types

We believe that with better online guidance and better-quality applications received, planning officers will spend less time working through minor issues, and can focus on higher-value planning work.

“What I appreciate the most is our collaboration across disciplines. The diverse range of expertise within the ODP community not only fuels innovation, but also ensures that our solutions truly match up with the needs of planning teams.”

Stephen Barnes, Senior Planner (Digital Projects), Lambeth Council

Next steps

Earlier this year, we relaunched Digital Site Notice, which is now live on Camden Council's website. Our focus is now on launching in the London Borough of Lambeth and refining the tool based on analytics and user feedback.

Our community is proactively working with established software providers to develop modern integrations between products in the market, as we lead the movement towards a more flexible market for planning software.

Currently, only Local Planning Authorities funded by the MHCLG Digital Planning Programme can join Open Digital Planning. We aim to open membership to all Local Planning Authorities later this year and explore more effective ways to engage with technology companies so that we create a more open digital planning system together.