Planning: Artificial Intelligence
The question
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, whether his Department has established baseline performance measures against which the success of AI planning tools will be assessed; what key performance indicators will be monitored; and whether expected productivity improvements have been modelled by planning authority.
Answered by Matthew Pennycook
My Department is evaluating the performance and impact of AI planning tools to ensure they deliver benefits for local planning authorities and the communities they serve.
Our Digital Planning Programme is developing an AI planning prototype in partnership with Google and Faculty. The tool analyses householder applications to help planning officers make faster and more consistent decisions. It aims to halve processing times, freeing up officers to focus on more complex applications.
We are testing the tool with a small number of local planning authorities. Performance measures, milestones, and success criteria have been put in place. The contract is outcomes-based, with built in reviews at each stage of development, and we will only progress to full national rollout if key milestones are met.
Implementation risks are being managed through phased testing with partner local planning authorities and decisions on publishing evaluation findings will be taken as the project progresses. Any decision on wider rollout will be informed by evidence and robust evaluation.
My Department is also supporting other AI-enabled planning tools, including the in-house Extract tool, which converts planning documents into structured data and thereby reduces manual processing, and PlanAI, which helps local planning authorities analyse and summarise consultation responses more efficiently. These tools are helping reduce administrative burdens and improve productivity within local planning authorities.
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