PARSOL Consultancy Register KPMG Introduction

KPMG have been working with the PARSOL national project for the last 12 months to help develop the ePlanning Service delivery standards and assist each of the PARSOL work streams to produce toolkits so that local authorities can adopt the products developed.

e-Planning Service Delivery Standards

A key deliverable from PARSOL is a set of e-Planning Service Delivery Standards (the Standards). These Standards will help LPAs to determine how well they are performing against the 2005 e-Government target and e-Planning 'excellence'. The Standards play a vital role in providing Local Planning Authorities and their service managers with a benchmark of their current service and how to plan for move forward. The benefits of adopting the Standards are:

• They establish a staged and outcome focused approach to the delivery of e-Planning services. LPAs will be able to identify where to start in moving towards the delivery of e-planning and determine how much progress they have made to date in establishing e-Planning services;
  
• Ability to identify clearly what ‘excellent e-Planning looks like’ and how far the LPA has to go in order to achieve the delivery of an ‘Excellent’ service;
  
• Prioritise the e-Planning services that are important focusing effort and resources on achieving realistic improvements within a time-bounded period;
  
• Enable LPAs to communicate their e-Planning agenda effectively to external organisations; and
  
• Plan for the delivery of faster, more joined-up and integrated services – ultimately, the aim of the e-Planning agenda is to enable modern customer focused Planning services.

Adopting the standards

The first step to adopting the standards is to undertake an initial assessment to determine the current progress made by the LPA. KPMG has developed the following quick assessment process to assist LPAs in taking this first step. The process involved the following four stages:

• Stage 1 – Project Initiation. We will meet with you agree the scope of the assessment and obtain your views on your current service and the direction you are taking.
  
• Stage 2 – Initial Assessment. We will assess your authority against each of the standards by reviewing the ePlanning services you currently provide, reviewing relevant documentation and additional telephone interviews with appropriate officers in your authority.
  
• Stage 3 – Validate Assessment and Agree Targets. Using our initial assessment we will present our initial findings and provide you with an opportunity to either confirm or challenge these and provide additional evidence if required. Having agreed the current grades we will determine with you the future grades you should or would like to achieve for each standard. This should be completed by a small group of Planning Senior Managers and the Authority’s IEG Champion.
  
• Stage 4 – Develop Action Plan. The final output will be a high level action plan which will identify the tasks that you will need to undertake to achieve your desired ePlanning standard grades. These will be prioritised according the direction of your authority and dependencies between tasks. For each task the appropriate PARSOL toolkits and guidance notes will also be identified along with the Service Improvement Planner toolkit for the overall business case.

Timescale and Fees

We anticipate each review taking 2½ weeks to complete as follows subject to the availability of LPA staff and documents:

The total cost of the review will be between £6,000 and £9,000 depending on the scope and size of the Authority.

Why Choose KPMG?

In addition to having an understanding of the range of PARSOL products and a level of knowledge in this arena, KPMG offers:

• an in-depth understanding and experience of local authorities. Many of our team have previously worked within the public sector;
  
• Wider experience of the eGovernment Agenda and Modernisation agenda; and
  
• tailored advice to meet individual council needs resulting in tangible improvements in online services.

Contacts

For an initial discussion, please contact: Keith Bannister on 020 7311 6558 or email keith.banister@kpmg.co.uk or Simon Haskey at simon.haskey@kpmg.co.uk