The Planning Inspectorate (PINS) has commissioned a series of annual customer satisfaction surveys in recent years, covering areas of the inspectorate's business such as planning appeals, development plan inquiries and rights of way orders. In 2002 the inspectorate commissioned a customer satisfaction survey which covered most aspects of the inspectorate business, and this survey was designed to be the first of a three-year programme of surveys to track satisfaction levels, and the progress made by the inspectorate in acting upon the results. The findings of the three surveys are available via the links shown below.

A second series of surveys covering the inspectorate's business began in 2005, and the findings of the first survey of the new series are also available below.

Prior to the survey, in-depth interviews were conducted with a number of organisations with an interest in planning issues, including architects, agricultural consultants, the CBI, Mast Action UK, and government bodies. Three focus groups were also held, with people who had made complaints to the Inspectorate, third parties to appeals, and agents. The depth interviews and focus groups helped to inform survey design and provided detailed information on customer views that would have been difficult to elicit in the questionnaire survey.

The 2005 survey questionnaire was similar to that used in the previous survey series to allow for reliable comparison. The survey was a postal survey of 4,000 customers selected from the Inspectorate's customer records. The sample was stratified by case type (planning appeals, enforcement appeals, adverts, call-ins etc) and respondent type (local authority, agents, individual appellants and interested parties), with selection being at random within strata. The inspectorate Customer Panel were also invited to complete an online questionnaire.

In total, 1,535 questionnaires were returned giving a response rate of 38%. The main findings are set out in the report below under a series of headings, with any differences between the surveys highlighted in the text.

Download the Customer Satisfaction Survey in PDF Format 310kb

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