Self-assessment toolkit - Improving the governance of developer contributions

Developer contributions are a key component of any council’s approach to planning and delivering infrastructure for their area. Taking an integrated approach towards infrastructure funding and delivery can maximise how income is used, ensure it is allocated towards the right infrastructure priorities, leading to sustainable development and growth.

This self-assessment toolkit assesses your current governance processes by using the 'maturity model' as described in the guidance handbook on improving the governance of developer contributions.

Every council has a different set of circumstances which need to be factored in when considering the appropriate level of governance for managing and allocating developer contributions.

These circumstances primarily relate to:

• the level of income you collect,
• the infrastructure priorities which you will allocate income to, and
• the level of resources available for you to manage them.

For example, if your income from CIL or S106 is relatively modest and generally used to fund one or a small number of priorities, there will be less of a requirement for more sophisticated approaches around how money is allocated, or the systems and processes to manage it.

These circumstances should be kept in mind through each part of this assessment; understanding them will be crucial towards determining where you want to get to and guide how much you want or need to improve.

This self-assessment toolkit includes a number of questions to assess your current practices. It may be useful for the various stakeholders involved in the process to also complete the self-assessment element, as there may be different levels of knowledge, and different perspectives on how to act. All can be useful in identifying what you may wish to change or improve.

After the assessment stage, the next step is to identify which areas of current practice require change or have potential for improvement. This should be done with a consideration of your own circumstances, including both the resources (people or funding) and potential barriers for implementing change.

The guidance handbook on improving the governance of developer contributions and self-assessment toolkit include a number of practical steps for improvement, along with some resources (case studies and links to examples of best practice from elsewhere) to help support you. Once you have identified the areas for improvement, these practical steps and supporting resources will help plan the specific actions required to enable improvement.



Should you wish to further explore how you can identify ways to improve your practices, support can be provided by PAS through a strategic review which would include a facilitated self-assessment and an action plan which would include some recommendations for improvement. If you would like more information on this please contact [email protected].

The self-assessment toolkit includes a number of questions; you select the answer which most accurately reflects your current processes and working practices. The assessment uses the 'maturity model' concept described in the accompanying guidance handbook on improving the governance of developer contributions.

On the Self-Assessment sheet:

01: Consider the questions which are organised by the themes explored in the guidance.

02: Consider the potential answers, and choose the one that best fits your current circumstances.

03: Provide some evidence or descriptions to explain your answer.

04: Enter the corresponding letter for your chosen answer.

Once you have answered each question a series of recommendations will be automatically generated on the 'Recommendations' tab according to your answer to each question.

You can use the 'Action Plan' tab to record any actions arising from the self-assessment process and if helpful use this in your reporting where approval to make improvements are being sought.

Click on the link below to download a copy of the self-assessment toolkit to complete.

If you would like to see an example of a completed self-assessment toolkit for a theoretical authority please click on the link below.