On behalf of An Bord Pleanála, I thank the joint committee for giving us the opportunity to meet it following the publication of our annual report earlier this year. Mr. Conall Boland is deputy chairperson; Ms Loretta Lambkin, chief officer; Ms Rachel Kenny, director of planning; Mr. Gerard Egan, director of corporate affairs; and Mr. Chris Clarke, secretary to the board.
In 2015 An Bord Pleanála saw a 9% increase in case intake. As there has been a similar increase so far in 2016, there has been a small upturn in the numbers of cases before us. In the same period in 2015 we had an 80% compliance rate with the statutory period of 18 weeks across all case types. The average time for a decision to be made across all cases was 16.9 weeks. For normal planning appeals, we had an 83% compliance rate, with the average time for a decision to be made being 15.1 weeks. I apologise for all of the figures, but in An Bord Pleanála we live on them. Certain case types and individual very complex cases took longer, some a good deal longer, than that to decide, but the majority of cases are decided on time.
In 2015 we introduced a new initiative, Project Freeflow, to clear the simpler cases, small housing developments and that type of case, out of the system as quickly as we could, with an internal objective of meeting a 14 week turnaround time in dealing with less complex cases. It was a pilot project and we dealt with 218 such cases in 2015. We have a set of criteria, a kind of triage system, for deciding which cases can be dealt with under that system and achieved a figure of 78% in meeting the internal objective of having a turnaround time of 14 weeks. There is no diminution in the level of assessment or decision making in these cases; they just move faster through the system. We considered it would be in the interests of householders in making relatively small applications or appeals and ours to decide them quickly. The initiative is being continued in 2016 and we hope to see good results. It has helped us to bring down our average turnaround time per week. In 2007 we were dealing with over 6,500 appeals and applications. This figure has gone down this year to between approximately 2,100 and 2,300. There is an upturn. However, we do not expect it to go back up to 6,000 but believe it will increase.
In 2015 more than 60% of cases involved residential developments, while 169 involved retail developments. We dealt with retail utilities - energy infrastructure, water and other developments. Even though residential developments account for a huge percentage of applications and appeals, some of the other cases are very complex and take up a lot of time. Under the residential heading, in 2015 householder developments - small extensions to existing houses - accounted for approximately one third of the work. The next heading was single houses, urban and rural, including single infill houses, followed by multiple residential - two plus. That is the profile of the cases we dealt with in 2015.
We have a strategic infrastructure development division of the board and in 2007 the Planning and Development (Strategic Infrastructure) Act 2006 gave new powers to An Bord Pleanála to act as a one-stop-shop, with direct application of certain cases to An Bord Pleanála. These cases are set out in the Schedules to the Act. We have to decide whether a case qualifies as a strategic infrastructure development. When it is approved, the application is made directly to the board. There is no appeal allowed against a board decision in these cases, except a judicial review which is allowed for in all cases. Pre-application consultations are provided for in these cases also. Many of them require an environmental impact assessment and an appropriate assessment under the habitats directive. These directives are very important. Environmental issues have become more important in planning, particularly in the context of implementation of EU directives. The strategic infrastructure development cases are often very high profile and can be controversial. They generally attract a lot of public participation and, in general, an oral hearing is held. Their complexity makes it extremely difficult to achieve an 18 week target, particularly when an oral hearing is held which can take two to three weeks. The inspector must then assimilate not only the written material he or she has received but also what he or she has heard at the oral hearing and assess and evaluate it. These cases generally take a few board meetings to go through. There is a lot of information involved in them.
In order to analyse and evaluate it etc., we spend much time on them. It is extremely difficult to do it within 18 weeks and those are the kinds of cases that are taking the longer times.
I said the Act started in 2007 and we have done a total of 85 strategic infrastructure cases since. The document outlines the breakdown of the type of cases we have done in the past two years, 2015 and 2016, and there is a chart giving a little more detail on that. There were seven strategic infrastructure development wind farms coming before us in those two years. Wind farms usually go to a local authority and to us on appeal, so we can see wind farms in two different ways. We had two very significant port developments, electricity developments and three major hospitals. We had the redevelopment of Dublin and Ringaskiddy ports, which are two extremely large developments, and both of which were granted by the board. We also dealt with the National Rehabilitation Hospital in Dún Laoghaire, a forensic mental health services hospital in Portrane, a number of wind farms and the significant case of the children's hospital at the St. James's Hospital campus. Although there are not that many cases, they take up much time and effort between the inspectorate and the board.
I will move to housing development. In one of the first slides seen by the committee, it was indicated that almost 60% of the An Bord Pleanála case load consists of housing development. As I said, they consist of householder developments and single house developments, both urban and rural, along with multi-unit developments. In recent years, the majority have been householder and single house cases, and there has been very little big development going on. We all know that. There were very few significant multi-unit developments. When we see multi-unit developments, which we categorise as over 30 units, they are prioritised for attention in the board and generally get decided within the timeframe. They are tagged when they are received and they go through pretty quickly.
There is a graph demonstrating fairly starkly the way in which the planning appeals for residential units above 30 have gone in the past few years. At the height of the economic boom in 2007, there were 568 developments over 30 units and by 2013, that had gone down to 19. In the past couple of years we have begun to see a small rise in those multi-unit developments of more than 30 units. It went from 35 in 2014 to 60 in 2015 and already this year we have 66. Many of those came in the second and third quarter of the year. We are beginning to see more development in that area.
Staying focused on housing, there is a slide on housing developments with more than 100 units. The committee knows this type of development will be the subject of the new legislation that is going through, and I will come to that in a moment. The total number of appeals received in 2016 for these was 15 and our average time for decision on those was 19.2 weeks. In 12 of the 15 cases, we met our statutory objective of 18 weeks and with one of the other three, we came in a day over the 18-week period. The other two were significantly complex cases with very significant planning history attaching to them and significant connections with other difficult cases with significant planning history. They were just difficult cases and they went beyond the 18 weeks. In general, these kinds of housing developments are relatively straightforward and the vast majority are decided on time. We are very conscious of ensuring that is done.
I will deviate from the annual report to speak briefly in this context about Rebuilding Ireland - Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness published in July by the Minister, Deputy Coveney. It allows for direct applications to An Bord Pleanála for large-scale housing developments and student accommodation, with no appeal apart from a judicial review of the decision. It relates to developments of more than 100 houses, including student accommodation. There is a connection with strategic infrastructure development, which is a similar type of legislation but for much more complex development.
In what is proposed for housing, the committee has seen and discussed the general scheme. It will have seen that there is a mandatory pre-application consultation with the local authority before An Bord Pleanála is ever involved. There is then a pre-application process led by An Bord Pleanála, with the developer and the local authority, and that is to be complete within nine weeks. As I stated, the planning application comes directly to An Bord Pleanála at that point. Submissions from the public, the planning authority and prescribed authorities are taken at that point in the usual way. All the submissions and application documents etc. are assessed by an inspector and a board decision must issue within 16 weeks of receipt of the application. It is very tight but we will establish a strategic housing division that is required in the legislation. We are putting together a special housing team within the board to deal with the applications, so they will get immediate attention.
We have been assured the necessary resources will be forthcoming. We have been discussing the mechanics and practicalities of the implementation. We know we will need some extra resources and we have been assured we will get them. We are confident that will happen. We are happy to take on this work and ensure efficient decision making in this regard, dealing with what is a housing crisis.
To return to the annual report, between 2015 and 2016 four strategic development zones were approved by An Bord Pleanála. That provides a significant quantum of planning permissions for residential development with commercial and mixed-use areas. We conducted a look-back earlier in the year at all the strategic development zones we dealt with since that legislation was introduced. From what we can see, we think they work well. It gives an opportunity for better-quality coherent built environments delivering sustainability. There is potential to deliver a really high-quality built environment, and it is something that should be encouraged.
I will change tack and speak about the legal challenges we face arising from our decisions, although this is contained in our annual report as well. Planning is very litigious and it gets great interest from the public. In the almost 40 years of An Bord Pleanála's existence, more than 700 of its decisions have been challenged in the courts. The reason is because the development of infrastructure in particular at this stage is often very controversial among the public. Traditionally, we have had ordinary planning appeals to do with housing, residential development etc. The increased complexity of environmental legislation arising from European Union directives and the European Court of Justice case law, as well as national case law decisions, all give more scope for making legal challenges. This means we have a developing legal framework because of case law. We had a very significant court judgment in late 2014 to do with a wind farm. I will not go into the details but it meant that a number of wind farms that were in front of us had to be delayed while we sought further information to comply with the court judgment. In some ways, the way in which the law develops is a moving target.
There is also the implementation of the Aarhus Convention.
It gives rights for public participation in environmental decision-making. We think including special cost rules in the legislation has also increased the number of judicial reviews that have been taken.
The graphic in the presentation shows the number of judicial reviews per annum against our caseload. In 2008, we had almost 6,000 appeals and 45 judicial reviews were taken. In contrast, in 2014, when we did not even have 2,000 cases, we had 42 judicial reviews. I put it down to the environmental provisions, to a large extent, the Aarhus provisions in the cost rules, the greater interest that people are taking and the knowledge those in communities have about their rights and all of that. The blue column in the graph in the presentation shows that at the end of September 2016, we had 35 cases already. It looks like we will be close to, if not at, the same level as 2014. It looks like a high number. There are costs attaching to that, and there is a slide with our breakdown of costs. An Bord Pleanála spends approximately 11% of its expenditure on legal cases.
The bulk of our decisions are upheld. A graph in the presentation shows the results of proceedings in the High Court for 2015, when 15 decisions were upheld and one was not. There are all sorts of other decisions, such as orders being quashed. Sometimes we can concede a case, generally on a technical issue, and sometimes appellants withdraw cases. Some years are better than others, but in general, looking back over a number of years, the vast majority of our decisions are upheld.
All the accounts are in the annual report, but I will give the committee a flavour of them. Our total income in 2015 was €20.8 million. It can be seen how that has developed. Our income decreased from 2011 onwards. We had some increase in 2015, some of which was to do with investment in an ICT project that we have running at present and for which we were funded by the then Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government, now the Department of Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government.
Legal fees amount to 11.4% of our total expenditure in 2015. Most of our expenditure is on salaries, PRSI and superannuation. Approximately 10% is spent on establishment expenses. We use consultants for various issues, mostly to do with casework. These are all listed at the back of the report. Sometimes we need to bring in an ecologist or different professionals, such as those with an engineering specialism, and that is what that is about.
An organisational review of An Bord Pleanála was established in 2015 by the then Minister, Deputy Kelly, and that report was published in March 2016. The report acknowledged the excellent reputation for independence and impartiality of An Bord Pleanála and recommended ways of enhancing that. It put forward a broad change agenda for the organisation to ensure what it called a fit-for-purpose organisation - the then Minister asked them to design something for a fit-for-purpose organisation - in meeting present and future challenges. We are in the process of putting together an implementation plan to take forward the key recommendations, and that is in preparation.
A number of actions we had identified are progressing. There is an overview group, composed of the Department and ourselves, which is overseeing the implementation of the key recommendations. That will report to the Minister at some stage.
When the review was put in place, we put off developing a new strategy for An Bord Pleanála, which was due, on the basis that we would like to see what was in the review and use it to inform that new strategy. We will get that under way within the next month.
A transformational change has been going on in the organisation, from a paper-based system which we have always had for the 40 years of our existence to a new digital platform. We, like many public service organisations, have embraced that. We made significant progress on the implementation of that major upgrade. The project, which we call "Plean IT" is to deliver an efficient, IT-enabled organisation providing a fully digital service for the public, including online submission of cases, payment of fees and review of documentation. It will be a complete transformation. As it stands, if a person wants to look at a file in An Bord Pleanála, he or she has to come into the board's offices in Marlborough Street. Once this project is fully rolled out, such a person will be able to do that from his or her own PC, laptop or whatever. That will be a significant change. People will also be able to make applications and appeals and submit other documentation online and pay their fees. Clearly, it is a major project and the organisation is fully engaged in the change initiatives that are required to make that happen.
Although we think we are a fit-for-purpose organisation given that we produce good, robust planning decisions that are upheld in the courts, the challenges we have to be a fit-for-purpose organisation relate to doing it in a new way. We have to maintain our reputation for integrity, fairness and transparency. That is the key aspect for An Bord Pleanála and will be our number one objective. We must make robust planning decisions in light of the increased levels of complexity. We have to ensure the continuity and consistency at decision-making level because everybody - the public, the local authorities who are the planning authorities, and others - depends on that. We also have to ensure the appropriate resources and necessary skill sets are available to us. We are in ongoing talks with the Department about that. We have to deal with increased caseloads and priority housing applications in a timely manner. We have to take on this new housing legislation and make it work. We have to deliver this ICT project to provide a modern digital customer service. In the middle of all that change, we have to keep our performance going and ensure we continue to meet our SOPs and our objective of dealing with at least 80% of cases within 18 weeks.
I acknowledge the huge amount of work that the staff in An Bord Pleanála put in to the results in 2015. Every member of staff in An Bord Pleanála contributed to it. This is not something the board or any particular part of the organisation did on its own. It was a whole-team effort. I acknowledge that in putting our annual report before the committee.