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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 10 Hansard (5 September) . . Page.. 3254 ..

6.

From 1 July the target is 30 working days without notification and 45 working days with notification. Those targets will be formalised in amendments to the Land (Planning and Environment) Act 1991 I will introduce later this Session.

The Assembly may be aware of recent reports in New South Wales where the Department of Local Government found that their average processing time was 70 days, not the 40 days mandated by the State legislation. The criticism was that time delays were exacerbated by referrals to other agencies and the serial processing of applications, each application passing from officer to officer.

The ACT has avoided these problems with a team approach to Development Applications.

When an Development Application is lodged it is quickly assessed by a senior level committee, a decision given on the extent of public notification required, and then the application is given to a project team from the North, South or Rural Sections of the PALM Group. Importantly, each application has one officer responsible - he or she is the contact with the applicant, providing a continuity of service and information about the progress of the application. That contact officer works within a multi-disciplinary team to assess the application and

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