Ipswich City Council development assessment: streamlining the process

Abstract

Ipswich is one of the fastest growing regions in Queensland, and as such, Ipswich City Council has had to deal with a rapid increase in Operational Works Applications. The aim of this dissertation is to investigate ways of streamlining their Operational Works Assessment process. A new process was developed in the preliminary stages, based on Risk Management principles. The process was analysed and underwent extensive changes to ensure maximum effectiveness resulting in the use of checklists and incentives to streamline the development process. Once the process was finalised, analysis was carried out to ascertain the potential benefits. Risk Management excelled as a tool for the reduction of all types of risk, and in this case has resulted in major potential time savings for the Assessment of Developments. In addition the use of time based and financial incentives have been found to provide further indirect timesaving for the application assessment process which complement pre-lodgement checklist and site inspection checklist and meetings developed as part of the risk management