When reviewing developer plans for new wind turbine projects in the Cambrian Mountains, all the relevant proposals can be found on a Welsh Government website called the “Planning and Environment Decisions Wales planning casework portal”.
See: https://planningcasework.service.gov.wales/
This website is an example of what the IT industry calls a ‘content management system’ (CMS) or ‘document management system’ (DMS). Access to documents is organized by ‘project’ and each project area contains information on the project status and a list of documents associated with the project. Hence, all documents submitted by the developer as part of their planning application can be found as a list of documents under the related project area.
CMS/DMS products have been around for a very long time, and consequently there is a well defined view of what constitutes the “basic feature set”.
Unfortunately, the Welsh Government IT function seems to have missed the ‘basic CMS/DMS features’ memo because the PEDW casework portal is very difficult to employ and presents huge issues on finding and keeping up to date with developments on any specific project.
As somebody who worked in IT software development for most of their career, I thought it would be appropriate to bring these shortcomings to the attention of PEDW. I sent PEDW an email that included five feature requests:
- Support direct web links to a specific application. Currently it is not possible to add a browser bookmark link for a specific application. The available URL https://planningcasework.service.gov.wales/dnsdetails directs to an error page.
- Add basic search facility on application project name. The DNS application listing page would benefit from having a basic application project name search filter (note: that could also act as a bookmark solution).
- Add DNS application project list filtering by project attribute. The site would benefit from having additional list filters to allow the public to quickly find projects.
- Support email notifications on new DNS applications. Given the high level of DNS application activity I would suggest that the public would value a facility that allowed them to be notified by email when a new application is created within a relative proximity of a given postal code (e.g. within 15 miles of SA20 0NW)
- Support email notifications on new documents or documents versions uploaded for a specific DNS application. Given the long project cycles I believe that the public would value a notification facility that sent them an email whenever a new document or revised document is uploaded for a nominated DNS application. This could be set up as an email alert on a daily or weekly basis.
None of the requested features are particularly novel, and again, going back to market expectations, you’d expect any competent CMS/DMS to include these out of the box.
As my communication to PEDW failed to attract a meaningful response, I forwarded my observations to each of the Senedd MS that serve our area. Fortunately, two of the MS stepped up and forwarded my request to the minister and PEDW.
Today, I received an email from Eluned Morgan MS, forwarding a response received from the minister Julie James. It would be an understatement to categorize the ministerial response as ‘inadequate’, shockingly complacent might be a more appropriate description.
In response to the ministerial letter, I have asked Eluned Morgan MS to convey three issues back to the minister:
- The minister is involved with one of most significant infrastructure programmes in recent years. Going the extra mile in terms of making important information readily available to the public is a very important aspect of gathering public support for the changes. Not addressing such concerns only adds weight to the concern of some that the minister is acting to restrict public participation in the planning process.
- The DNS and PEDW are relatively new and in terms of quality management it would be normal to expect a wave of initial feedback from users. The minister’s reference to a ‘phase 2’ suggests that such a contingency was made. However, the lack of a scheduled delivery timeframe for phase 2 does raise concerns over project funding and project governance. Also, I would like to see what features have been prioritized for a phase 2, and the customer feedback that was used to set the phase 2 scope.
- After a career in senior IT roles, I can inform you that the requested changes are relatively minor and simple to implement. I would argue that some of the features I have requested show that the existing PEDW project portal falls well short of the Government Digital Service (GDS) guidelines for overall website design and functionality to ensure a smooth user experience.
Beyond that there is one slightly amusing aspect that suggests that the minister and her advisors are unable to join the dots between what they are planning for phase 2 and my specific requests.
In her letter the minister states: “The main focus of this update is to enable online submission of planning appeals via the portal”. When designing an IT system, the expected behaviours and transactions are captured in terms of what IT staff call “use cases”. The primary use cases for a planning appeal feature might cover scenarios like:
- Submit a planning appeal
- Notify all other parties that a planning appeal has been received
So when a party submits a new planning appeal to the portal how are the other parties involved (PEDW, developer, public groups, councillors) meant to find out that an appeal has been lodged? Well I suspect that this will be done by email notification. Hang on, doesn’t that sound a lot like the email notification features that I requested? Sure does to me.
So minister. The next time a constituent asks you to raise your department’s game, stop for a minute, join the dots, challenge your advisors to do more, and ensure that providing the public with a simple and efficient method of being kept informed about planning applications that have a dramatic impact on their lives remains a top priority for your department!