Maldon District Council has received the report of the recent Audit Commission Inspection into the Council's Planning services which has assessed the service as 'fair' with poor prospects for improvement.

The Council is now carefully considering the findings in this report, and as with most inspection reports, the Audit Commission has recommended that the Council carries out a number of changes to its services which need to be considered.

Cllr Bob Boyce, who was Leader of Maldon District Council in 2005, said "Now we have received the final report of the Audit Commission into our Planning Services, and as referred to in my speech to Council on

23^rd June 2005, we will consider carefully the issues that this report raises.  

This includes our corporate governance arrangements, in particular the Area Committee structure, a review of committee workloads and the possibility of public access to committees.  During the year we will review these arrangements and bring proposals back to the Council, but it is fair to state that we are already taking steps to deal with a number of the issues raised by the Commission in our Business Plan for the services. In view of this, we do not accept that our prospects for improvement are "poor". 

The Council is pleased to note that the Audit Commission has recognised its achievements in securing high quality development and helping to increase prosperity in the District. It has acknowledged that Councillors and Officers are committed to the service and that user satisfaction remains high."

The report can be viewed in the download area to the right of this page, or by < clicking here >.