Consultation and Engagement Process

The change in the guidance and its potential impact on practice is also apparent in the change in how consultation and engagement is undertaken in the CIL policy process. Again in the PGS proposals this was not a particular issue, but the change to the Plan-led approach of the CIL required consultation in a similar way as to that required by the Local Plan process.

The CIL guidance set out a formal process with two formal stages of consultation, at the publication of the Draft Preliminary Charging Schedule stage and at the Draft Charging Schedule stage. This would then be followed by the CIL Examination itself and the Inspectors Report, before formal adoption by the local authority. In the

guidance on setting the CIL rate little or no reference was made to the consultation or engagement process up to the February 2014 guidance.

“charging authorities should consider views of developers at an early stage.”

(DCLG, 2013a p10)

In the February 2014 guidance a whole section on how the Charging Schedules should be prepared, including engagement with and requiring support from local

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developers. This clearly will likely have an impact on the practices required to

implement the CIL policy and reflect the relationship the local authority has with local developers and property professionals in its area, this is something which is new in the implementation of CIL compared to s106 or earlier national taxation mechanisms.

“Charging authorities should seek early engagement with local developers, others in the property industry and infrastructure providers when preparing their charging schedules.” (DCLG, 2014a p14)

“a charging authority should directly sample an appropriate range of types of sites across its area, in order to supplement existing data. This will require support from local developers.” (DCLG, 2014a p16)

There is also a whole section on what the CIL can be spent on and by whom and the impact of Neighbourhood portion of the levy, which was introduced by the Localism Act in 2011 but only included in the CIL guidance for setting the rates in February 2014. This requirement to pass a proportion of the income from CIL directly to a Town or Parish Council or where a Neighbourhood Plan has been prepared, will clearly also require a change in practice and an implicit requirement to consult and engage over the priorities for spending in a local area. There will be a need to align future spending plans between the community and the local authority and to engage in planning future infrastructure provision.

Many of these changes in the national CIL policy regulations and guidance are still relatively recent, the full impact on practices are still being considered, what is clear is that as in the change in the conceptualisation of value capture that has taken place over the period 2003 to 2015, the CIL guidance on setting rates has also shifted over the period and requires changes in practices around the implementation of the policy, how they will translate into practices at a local level will be considered in the Case studies.

5.7 Conclusion

The emergence of the CIL as a value capture policy is part of the need to secure more funding to support the provision of infrastructure to in turn support growth. The Barker review into the provision of housing supply (Barker, 2004) identified the need for an additional value capture mechanism to Planning Obligations, to fund strategic

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infrastructure to support growth. Initially the Barker review proposed a new land tax, the Planning Gain Supplement (PGS) but this eventually became the CIL which in itself has evolve since its initial proposals in 2008, but the whole rationale was to support growth and new housing supply.

This was the start of the reconceptualization of value capture from one of a redistribution of unearned land value to one of funding infrastructure, from explicit taxation in terms of PGS to implicit taxation via CIL. This was reflected in the discursive struggle between the storylines promoting the “value capture” discourse and the storylines promoting “supporting growth” discourse over the period. The storylines related to the key actors involved in the discursive struggle and the storylines of “encouraging developers”, “incentivising landowners”, “facilitating local authorities” and “persuading communities” became dominant supporting the

“supporting growth” discourse, as they were based on removing the barriers to the delivery of new development and growth.

The changes in the national policy increasingly emphasised the need to remove barriers to development and the change from PGS to CIL. This increased in CIL to ensure a supply of land via the “incentivising landowners”, to promote development via “encouraging developers” by protecting the viability and deliverability of projects within the assessment of CIL, the provision of funding for strategic infrastructure in addition to S106 funding to “facilitate local authorities” and finally the “persuading communities” by the 25% payment to neighbourhoods. These storylines were identified in national policy guidance and its changes over the 10 year period from 2005 to 2015; they also envisaged impacts on policy practices.

In tracking the changes to national policy regulations and guidance it is clear that the three challenges faced by all value capture mechanisms persisted; the assessment of the development value, the sharing out of this between the various actors including what amount to capture by the public sector and finally how that funding would be spent, these were the key areas of policy practice. In addition, the consultation and engagement process was a key fourth policy practice and important in how the policy would be implemented involving key actors in the process.

The national policy guidance changed in relation to the four areas of policy practice changing the emphasis and restricting the discretion of local authorities. Firstly, the

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IDP would set out the infrastructure needed to support the growth identified in the Local Plan and on which the funding would be spent, this was further restricted by the subsequent requirement to provide a 123 list setting out the specific items the envisaged income would be spent on. The policy practices were envisaged to restrict local authorities to spending of CIL on growth related infrastructure only.

Secondly, the Viability assessment was to assess the amount of development value available to be shared between the various actors, the viability assessment was placed at the heart of the CIL policy, with the threshold land value assessment protecting the landowner’s value and the 20% profit level protected for the developer for taking the risk in undertaking the development. Thirdly, the setting the rate policy practice influenced by key metaphors “striking the balance” and “cumulative policy burden”, also restricted the discretion of local authorities in setting a CIL rate, with increasing emphasis on evidence in the decision making process, it also forced local authorities to make policy choices within the viability assessment headroom. Finally, the consultation and engagement process over time increasingly emphasised

collaboration with developers, in turn increasing the influence of developers on the CIL process and the asymmetry of knowledge and power between the parties.

The national policy guidance and its codified knowledge provided a context for local policy implementation outlined above, how this translated into policy practices at a local level is considered in the case studies in the next two chapters.

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