Mr Punter Posted April 1, 2019 Share Posted April 1, 2019 I just went through the online Planning Portal to get a condition discharged. The application fee was £116.00. After uploading all the required documents I am hit with a payment screen requesting a mandatory additional "service charge" of £20 to PPQ (Portalplansquest). Is this now standard? Surely if the charge is mandatory they should add it to the published planning fee? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeremy Harris Posted April 1, 2019 Share Posted April 1, 2019 It seems that the planning portal has been contracted out to TerraQuest, who are presumably now trying to make a profit from providing this service: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-partner-appointed-to-run-the-planning-portal The appointment was made some time ago, but presumably it's taken this long to get their payment scheme up and running. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Temp Posted April 1, 2019 Share Posted April 1, 2019 Here it say it's for the "financial transaction"... https://www.planningportal.co.uk/info/200247/professional_portal/145/financial_transaction_service_and_payment_nomination All applications submitted through the Planning Portal and which require a planning fee to be paid will use our Financial Transaction Service as soon as it is launched. The charge for the service is £16.67 (+ VAT). So how come the Land Registry can charge £3 for a title plan with no fee? If they can do it.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Temp Posted April 1, 2019 Share Posted April 1, 2019 (edited) Can you still apply direct to the council to discharge or do you have to use the portal? Edited April 1, 2019 by Temp Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr Punter Posted April 1, 2019 Author Share Posted April 1, 2019 Agreed. This is more like Ryanair behaviour. Loathsome. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ferdinand Posted April 2, 2019 Share Posted April 2, 2019 (edited) 11 hours ago, Mr Punter said: I just went through the online Planning Portal to get a condition discharged. The application fee was £116.00. After uploading all the required documents I am hit with a payment screen requesting a mandatory additional "service charge" of £20 to PPQ (Portalplansquest). Is this now standard? Surely if the charge is mandatory they should add it to the published planning fee? It appears to apply to Agents at present, and I think to Householders who submit their own PP through the portal. At least in my neck of the woods I can still apply to the Local Authority in writing on a paper form but the process of creating a form at the Portal, printing it out, and submitting by post or hand is being deliberately impeded. Is there not a rule that Planning Depts can only charge the cost of their service (which is probably not completely recovered at present), and privatising it may be a way round that? The pitch to an LPA is it saves them processing the 25% of PPs that fail validation because the payment is wrong, and so boosts efficiency. The pitch to agents is in the FAQ: https://ecab.planningportal.co.uk/Uploads/PPQ_LPA_Guidance_and_FAQs.pdf Quote What is changing? At the Planning Portal, we have always been passionate about refining our service to add value for users wherever we can. It has become increasingly obvious to us that the biggest pain point within the planning process is validation, with around 25 per cent of all invalid applications being due to missing cheque payments. In fact, ‘offline’ payments, including cheques, still account for more than two-thirds of all online application payments. As you know, this causes a huge headache for Planning Authorities, but also for Agents and Applicants. To improve the validation at source and simplify for everyone the process of paying for planning applications, we are introducing our new financial transaction service in early September 2018. The service will be completely managed by the Planning Portal, meaning less time spent chasing, paying or reconciling planning fees for everyone else. The way payments are being simplfied is that nothing will be passed through to the LPA until the payment has been processed :-). Not clear whether that is adding value. For Agents there also seem to be some complications in that single payments will cover multiple Apps when paying back to you, and you get a list by CSV format email. @Mr Punter, to explain the extra to your customers ... ie you, you read this out to yourself in the bathroom mirror: Quote What should I tell customers about your new service? Let them know that they can continue to submit planning applications online via our 1App system. They will now see a standardised set of payment options applicable for all local authorities, meaning the agent or their applicant (client) can use any method to pay for their application quickly and efficiently, including the Payment ReDirect service. If they ask about the new fee, we suggest you inform them that: We have improved our service to ensure that applications can be validated more quickly, as missing payments slow down the process for everyone. Transforming planning and building Financial Transaction Service FAQs For local planning authorities We have improved our service to offer a consistent range of payment options across all authorities, including the option to nominate a client to pay directly and that payment can be made 24/7, 365 days a year That part of the charge will be used to further improve the 1App service and the wealth of free content, guidance and useful tools we offer. I would say they are positioning themselves to be able to take over the service from LPAs using a cost saving / more efficient service at no cost to you argument should such a thing become law. There are about 400k Planning Applications per year in the UK for residential, so that is about £10m of potential revenue, and perhaps as much again for non-residential. Presumably Building Regs are potentially about the same. The £20 flat fee looks questionable to me, as that is up to 20%. IMO that needs a complaint to Trading Standards, or from a consumer client of an agent to their MP. It is a pretty strategy; the person who ultimately gets bent over only finds out after the fact. Ferdinand Edited April 2, 2019 by Ferdinand 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ferdinand Posted April 2, 2019 Share Posted April 2, 2019 (edited) There is also this, which I need an agent to explain to me. It seems to involve crippling part of their current process. Closing a loophole? Quote Are we likely to receive more emailed applications? In order to minimise agents changing to emailing applications we have made a change to 1App. Forms completed online will now not able to be exported, printed or saved locally as PDFs prior to submission, so it is unlikely you will see a rise in emailed applications. We will still offer all ‘paper’ application forms on our website for applicants to print and fill in manually. [Update: Aha, for some reasons emailed applications are not in the process. At some point they will start refusing them point blank. https://www.planningportal.co.uk/applications Please note: From 10 September 2018, there will be a service charge for submitting online planning applications that attract a planning fee. These online applications fees are to be paid to the Planning Portal by using the payment options that are presented to you as part of the application process and before the application is submitted to the local authority. Find out more.] [Further update: This is actually quite naughty; they are attempting to coral you into the revenue earning process by making it more difficult to submit a form created online into your LA Directly. https://www.planningportal.co.uk/faqs/faq/260/will_i_still_be_able_to_printexport_1app_applications Draft applications On 6 December 2018, we reinstated the ability to print and export draft PDF planning applications. This feature had previously been removed with the launch of our payment service in September 2018. You can now download and print draft application forms from 1App. The forms still hold all of the information relevant to your application; however, we have made some key changes to the draft forms, which render them invalid for submission to local authorities. These changes include: A full page ‘DRAFT’ watermark Removal of the local authority’s logo Removal of the declaration box Removal of the agent’s details] (I have attached one of their defaced draft Application forms). (The security appears to be every bit as good as other PDF documents known to the forum, though actual forms are produced on the fly) Ferdinand PP-00000000-DRAFT.pdf Edited April 2, 2019 by Ferdinand Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ferdinand Posted April 2, 2019 Share Posted April 2, 2019 It seems that if you download a blank form from the Planning Portal, you can (in theory) print it out blank for handwriting, or fill it out and print it, but you cannot save a completed form. https://1app.planningportal.co.uk/YourLPA/DownloadOfflineForms Ferdinand Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hecateh Posted April 2, 2019 Share Posted April 2, 2019 4 hours ago, Ferdinand said: It seems that if you download a blank form from the Planning Portal, you can (in theory) print it out blank for handwriting, or fill it out and print it, but you cannot save a completed form. https://1app.planningportal.co.uk/YourLPA/DownloadOfflineForms Ferdinand Not sure if this applies here but I received a completed form from someone which was fine in email form but only downloaded the blank form. I got round it by, insteading of downloading, I chose print to PDF which then saved it as a complete PDF on my computer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jack Posted April 2, 2019 Share Posted April 2, 2019 Quote At the Planning Portal, we have always been passionate about refining our service to add value for users wherever we can. Where's the "I laughed so hard my head fell off" emoji? They apparently "add value" by hitting users with a £20 surcharge just for making a payment! And passionate? Really? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ferdinand Posted April 2, 2019 Share Posted April 2, 2019 1 hour ago, Hecateh said: Not sure if this applies here but I received a completed form from someone which was fine in email form but only downloaded the blank form. I got round it by, insteading of downloading, I chose print to PDF which then saved it as a complete PDF on my computer. This change is only the last 6-8 months or so, so you may have dodged it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hecateh Posted April 2, 2019 Share Posted April 2, 2019 11 minutes ago, Ferdinand said: This change is only the last 6-8 months or so, so you may have dodged it. No - nothing to do with planning permission, something else entirely. Just that if I saved the attachment it saved without the information If I chose 'print to PDF', because I was technically printing the form, then the information stayed in place and I had a saved PDF with the information intact. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ferdinand Posted April 2, 2019 Share Posted April 2, 2019 (edited) 35 minutes ago, Hecateh said: No - nothing to do with planning permission, something else entirely. Just that if I saved the attachment it saved without the information If I chose 'print to PDF', because I was technically printing the form, then the information stayed in place and I had a saved PDF with the information intact. thanks for that. Unfortunately the Online process vandalises the filled-in form in several ways when you download it so you cannot use that for a PP application ... for example it leaves off the box where you sign. It is intended to only be useable as a draft record. And so on. They are being well naughty. Edited April 2, 2019 by Ferdinand 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ferdinand Posted April 2, 2019 Share Posted April 2, 2019 3 hours ago, jack said: Where's the "I laughed so hard my head fell off" emoji? They apparently "add value" by hitting users with a £20 surcharge just for making a payment! And passionate? Really? Yes but they help you by delaying anything at all going to the Council until the payment is in their sticky fingers. How thoughtful. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jack Posted April 2, 2019 Share Posted April 2, 2019 9 minutes ago, Ferdinand said: How thoughtful. I don't doubt that they're passionate about taking your fees. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr Punter Posted April 2, 2019 Author Share Posted April 2, 2019 OK I have just spoken to the LPA and they suggest I download the form, print it, scan it and email it to them, together with the other documents. I will do as @Hecateh suggests and just print to a PDF so I can fill it in on screen. They have their own payment portal. I will let you know how I get on, but what a hassle to save being blagged out of £20! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ferdinand Posted April 2, 2019 Share Posted April 2, 2019 (edited) 42 minutes ago, Mr Punter said: OK I have just spoken to the LPA and they suggest I download the form, print it, scan it and email it to them, together with the other documents. I will do as @Hecateh suggests and just print to a PDF so I can fill it in on screen. They have their own payment portal. I will let you know how I get on, but what a hassle to save being blagged out of £20! If I have this correctly, that process may have some problems. I am not sure the fill-in fields will be preserved, and you may have to do it in a picture editor. But I hope I am wrong. Let us know if it works. Edited April 2, 2019 by Ferdinand Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr Punter Posted April 2, 2019 Author Share Posted April 2, 2019 I have just emailed the application and transferred the fee, taking a fair amount of time but saving £20 (well £16.66 actually as we are VAT registered and also with corporation tax maybe only a tenner, so a waste of time but I made my point!). I printed the pdf form via a pdf driver and used the Adobe text, checkbox and sign utilities to fill it in. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Temp Posted April 2, 2019 Share Posted April 2, 2019 If you think £20 is bad check out the new fees for getting probate. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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