Two surveys were carried out by ERC earlier this year in which they were invited to share their thoughts on the performance of the authority’s planning office.

In a report the East Renfrewshire Council’s planning Committee elected officials were asked to note the findings and welcome the positive feedback from the public.

The report, delivered by Ian MaClean, head of environment, read: “Two customer surveys have been carried out, one covering the planning Service and one covering the Building Standards Service in order to gauge the customers’ views of the service that they receive from us.

“The overall results of the Planning customers survey are very positive and it is not considered that.

“90 per cent were either ‘very’ or ‘fairly satisfied’ with the time taken to speak to someone on the telephone (only one person said they were fairly dissatisfied, none were very dissatisfied) — this is up from 83% last year.

“A further 90 per cent were either ‘very’ or ‘fairly satisfied’ with the time taken to get a response to a written enquiry (only one person was fairly dissatisfied, none were very dissatisfied) — this is down from 100% last year.” The council has also been encoutragin users to make use of its online planning services.

The report added: “55 per cent had used our online planning services. Of those who didn’t use it, 86 per cent of them answered simply that they “prefer not to”, while two people said that they were unaware of the service.” However, planning officers and staff did come in for some criticism from disgruntled customers, with the rport detailing some of the complaints made in the surveys.

On the subject of information received from enquiries, the report said: “Two people said it was good and helpful. One person said that some of the information was wrong, inconsistent and not given in plain English. We are not aware of any information that is wrong and we do try to give information in as plain English as possible (given the complexities of the planning system) and to this end we publish online a number of ‘briefing notes’ which are written for public consumption.” A number of comments were also made on the way staff handled their jobs and the enquiries put to the, which were detailed as: “Someone said that they ‘never seem to get someone who can give you an answer’— but we have professional staff available to assist the public 35 hours a week. Someone commented that ‘I don’t think planning officers take public views into consideration’ — but that is not correct as all representations are assessed in reports of handling.

“One person said that ‘Very basic errors were made. Out of four planning applications all were delayed due to mistakes by planning officers’ — we are not aware of the instances which are referred by this person so cannot investigate them in detail, but this does not seem to be a common experience.” A number of other issues were also addressed by the report but overall councillors accepted that the outcome of the survey was positive, adding: “The generally positive feedback to our customer surveys is to be welcomed and shows that we are generally providing a good service to our customers.”