Systems were isolated across the Council to keep them safe after the cyber attack last November.
Now, after receiving the go ahead from cyber experts, the Met Police and the National Cyber Security Centre, the Council is carefully switching systems back on.
Officers will be working through a backlog of around 1,700 planning applications, which the authority says will take considerable time to address. Land charge searches are also live, with around 600 cases to work through.
To speed up the process, the Council is redeploying and hiring additional staff, holding extra daytime planning committees, bringing small and simple applications together and will be bringing some consultation periods down to the statutory 21 days to review applications more quickly.
Planners are currently unable to give individual timescales for individual applications and the Council is asking residents not to call regarding their application.
Planning phone lines will be closed so that teams can focus their resources on processing applications.
Information on specific applications is being updated via the Planning Applications Search on the Council’s website.
The Council expects to have a clearer understanding of timescales within the next month once the systems have been live for a time.
Leader of the Council, Cllr Elizabeth Campbell, said:
“Since we were attacked by cyber criminals, our priority has been protecting our systems and recovering as quickly as possible. We have been working hard with expert partners to test systems and get them back online, ensuring this Council comes back not only safely, but in a better position than before.
“Our planning systems going live is a critical moment in our recovery and while we are very pleased we’re at this stage, we expect there to be bumps in the road. I know it has been incredibly frustrating for residents and developers waiting to move their planning applications and land charge searches forward. Officers won’t be able to reply to individual enquiries, because we believe good customer service right now is about efficiency and speed. We are focusing the resources we have on clearing the backlog of cases as quickly as possible. We’re hiring more staff and will be holding longer planning committees to hear more cases. But I have to stress this is going to take time and we’re grateful for our residents’ patience and cooperation.”
