MHCLG Augmented Planning Decisions

The Contracting Authority (Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government) seeks to develop a planning tool that enables Augmented decision making for planning applications.

The initial focus will be on householder developments (as defined in Town and Country Planning (Development Management Procedure) (England) Order 2015) with a view to expand into further application types within

the ‘other*’ category (those not classified as Major or Minor) which represent 69% of all planning applications.

The objective is to dramatically reduce planning application processing times initially targeting a reduction from upwards of 8 weeks to circa 4 weeks, with a long-term vision of near-instant decisions for straightforward applications. All reduction targets do not include elements that solutions cannot be expected to affect i.e. statutory 21-day consultation periods, site visits, neighbour notifications, external consultee responses, and committee scheduling.

Proposals will need to demonstrate understanding of the relevant parts of the planning process including administrative processes (e.g. policy research, citation generation, report generation) as well as analytical processes (e.g. material considerations identification, policy compliance assessment, planning balance evaluation, decision reasoning). Solutions should be designed to assist planning officers with the above processes and provide reasoned, verifiable recommendations for decisions. Solutions must be integrated with existing planning systems.

As part of the Invitation to Tender (ITT) stage, bidders will be required to participate in a two-week demo build (unpaid) to each develop a working prototype which will be evaluated at "Demo Day". This will take the form of a presentation of the prototype, and this will be evaluated in accordance with the process and award criteria set out in the ITT.

During the contract, the service recipients (i.e. those that will use the solution) may include:

DSIT MHCLG

Local Planning Authorities (317 LPAs)

Planning Inspectorate

Devolved Administrations

Combined Authorities (mayoral authorities with planning powers)

National Parks Authorities (separate planning authorities)

Broads Authority (special planning authority)

The procurement has been carried out by the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology for and on behalf of the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government.