Who checks the governance behind your design review panel?
Good advice matters. So do the arrangements that protect it.
Design review in practice. The meeting and site-visit photographs illustrate panel activity, not councils taking part in a governance assessment. Source details appear below.
If someone asked you tomorrow who can change your council’s design review panel report, where would you look for the answer?
The terms of reference? The agreement with the provider? An email explaining how factual corrections are handled?
It sounds like a small detail. But there is a considerable difference between correcting a site address and rewriting a panel’s conclusion. When a difficult case comes along, you want that distinction to be clear.
That is the thinking behind our Design Review Panel Governance Health Check: start with practical questions, look at the evidence and work out what, if anything, needs attention.
A good panel still needs clear arrangements
A panel can include excellent professionals and give thoughtful advice. That does not, on its own, tell you how appointments are made, how conflicts are managed or who controls the final report.
For a Monitoring Officer, examining those arrangements is different from running the panel. Planning colleagues and the provider supply much of the evidence. The Monitoring Officer can lead or sponsor the assessment, with appropriate colleagues helping to complete it.
You do not have to know every answer before you start. This is not a test of memory. It is a way to establish what the records actually show.
A site visit provides context for the discussion. The governance questions concern how the review is organised and how its advice is handled.
Start with ten questions
The free Exposure Check is a quick starting point. There is no registration and no need to hand over your email address.
“Not sure” is a perfectly useful answer. It tells you where to ask for a document or an explanation. It does not mean the council has failed, or that a safeguard is missing.
Watch the free tool in action
See how to answer the ten questions, read the results and decide what to check next. The video uses an illustrative example—not a real council assessment.
AI-generated narration using Jonathan Braddick’s authorised voice clone.
If you want to go further, the full Health Check costs £500 + VAT (£600 including VAT) for one named panel arrangement. It is online and self-service: no appointment, no subscription, and you can save your work and come back later.
It brings together an evidence checklist, 60 guided questions and a downloadable 90-day action plan. Your supporting documents stay in your own systems; you record the evidence references and your assessment in the workspace.
From evidence to action
Gather the records. Ask colleagues and the provider for the evidence.
Check what they show. Separate what is supported from what is still uncertain.
Agree the next steps. Give each action an owner and a realistic date.
Allow roughly half a day once your records are ready, plus time to gather and check them. The useful result is not just a score. It is knowing what needs doing and who will do it.
What does that look like in practice?
Take the terms of reference. The document may be on the website, but who keeps it up to date? When will it next be reviewed? A small gap can have a straightforward answer.
Worked example — not a customer result
M06 · Terms of reference: the document is published. Who keeps it current?
Example finding: The current document is on the council’s website, but nobody has recorded who keeps it up to date or when it will next be reviewed.
Selected score | Evidence-based score |
3 — Established | 2 — Partly established |
Partial evidence caps the score. A published document does not, on its own, show how it is kept up to date.
Action for the next 90 days: Introduce version control, publication responsibility and a documented review cycle.
Owner: Panel manager (example). Target date: Agreed by your team.
You record the findings and choose the owner and date. The tool applies the scoring rules; it does not independently inspect your documents. A separate critical safeguard can still require immediate action.
Adapted from the Health Check’s existing illustrative example. Try the example on the website.
That is the sort of useful improvement the assessment should help you make. More serious safeguard gaps are flagged separately, so they do not disappear into an otherwise reassuring average.
The people behind the work
Our governance work brings together Andy Robbins, Tim Burton and me. Andy and Tim bring senior local-authority planning experience. I bring the experience of founding and running The Design Review Panel.
Andy Robbins · Tim Burton · Jonathan Braddick
You may not need anything more
Your assessment may give you enough information to agree improvements internally. That is a worthwhile outcome.
If evidence is disputed, concerns remain or you need an external opinion, our Standard Governance Review is £4,750 + VAT, subject to scope and assignment-specific conflict checks. There is no obligation to book it.
The £500 Health Check remains your organisation’s self-assessment—not an independent opinion from us, accreditation or confirmation of legal compliance.
Design Review Ltd also operates The Design Review Panel. We are open about that relationship, and external assignments are assessed against our conflicts and independence safeguards.
We are introducing these resources to Monitoring Officers across England. If you are curious, start with the ten free questions. You may find that the safeguards are already well evidenced. If not, you will have a clearer idea of what to ask for.
Take a look for yourself
Ten questions. No registration. A practical place to start.
About the images: Meeting and site-visit photographs: The Design Review Panel’s Baldwins Gate case study, published in September 2022, describing a July 2021 review. They illustrate design review practice, not participation in or endorsement of the governance service. The three portraits are the existing About Us photographs. The worked example is illustrative, not a real council’s result.
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