Dear Paul,
My situation is a bit different but I'm trying to push all the same. I am a Housing OT and rather bizarrely wholly funded by Social Care. Previous similar posts I've worked in have either been part funded or wholly funded by Housing. Currently I am spending the majority of my time advising on the build/design of wheelchair accessible units (we have 150+ either on site or in the pipeline) and making sure they adhere to our guidance as part of their planning condition, but also pre-app. We have a few very large developments with large providers such as Tesco's etc. who are paying several agencies, including other local authority departments such as 'Highways' sums of money so I have been suggesting for some time that our planning dept could recoup some of the money in exchange for my consultancy services. The reason also being that Social Care are so short staffed that I'm being pulled back into that service.
Our Access Officer post was deleted last year but she did have a Service Level Agreement whereby Planning (who she was employed by) charged for her services although I know if got rather complicated as it was for all her services so I'm not sure in the end if they gave up. I'm also unsure but think it was also for pre-app advice.
I'd be very interested to hear how you get on!
Cheers, Jacquel
Jacquel Runnalls
Senior Occupational Therapist in Housing
London Borough of Waltham Forest
Cedarwood House
2d Fulbourne Rd
LONDON E17 4GG
Tel: 020 8496 5544
Fax: 020 8496 5439
>>> "Curry, Paul" <[log in to unmask]> 02/24/12 9:47 AM >>>
Thanks Mark.
I understand the torn feeling and the uncertainty. We're tentatively
looking at if it would be possible to generate income from the private
sector, other public bodies and the third sector to contribute towards
the costs of the work that's done that isn't our buildings or services.
It may be the way things will be going in this economic climate.
I'm working on getting the OK to join the Assn, not quite there yet.
Thanks again
Paul
-----Original Message-----
From: Accessibuilt list [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf
Of Mark Taylor
Sent: 23 February 2012 12:58
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [ACCESSIBUILT] Charging for services
Dear Paul,
Until October at Cambridge we didn't charge for pre-application advice,
but now we do. It was decided that access/disability advice wouldn't be
charged for, though for all other planning officer advice is charged
for. This was because we wanted to ensure application took as much
access advice as possible and you could not get access advice from
phoning the duty officer (this advice is free). I felt torn by this
decision, happy that I could given people free advice, but worried as I
don't generate income and therefore if departmental effciencies are
checked in the future my post may look uneconomical.
You should join the Eastern area of the Access Association, in our
bi-monthly meetings held at Bedford, Hatfield, Cambridge and
occassionally elsewhere we discuss such policies within the authorities
we work for.
Yours
Mark
Access Officer
Cambridge City Council
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