Major disruption to planning systems

The public are being advised that ongoing major disruptions to the IT systems supporting the work of the Council's Development Management and Building Standards teams are currently impacting on service delivery.

The disruptions follow a server move carried out last Thursday by the Council's external provider.

That server move has had a significant knock on impact on various IT and electronic functions, both those that are used by the public and those that are used by staff.

This is affecting the team's ability to validate applications, issue decisions and plot applications on electronic mapping systems in order to run constraint checks.

Access to the planning portal has also been impacted sporadically, with members of the public and consultation bodies unable to search for applications at various points during the outage - and applicants unable to submit applications. 

Efforts have been ongoing with the external provider to resolve the issues - and will continue over the coming days.

Hayley Green is the Council's Corporate Director for Neighbourhood Services.  She said: " Over the last decade improved technology has undoubtedly transformed the way in which we handle planning applications  - and for the most part this works very smoothly, making the process easy and accessible for all.

"On this occasion - which saw our external provider move servers - something has gone awry.  This is having a major impact on our services and we're working hard alongside the provider to resolve the issues.  We'll update in due course on the progress that we make."

Those wishing to make representations on planning applications in the meantime can email these to planning@orkney.gov.uk or deliver by hand or post to the Council Offices in Kirkwall.