Woking Borough Council has begun publishing all of its
building planning application documents online within two days of
receiving them by using a managed service.
The council scans, indexes and publishes more than 300 planning
documents every month. Its website now holds all the images needed
by the council's planning department - more than 8,000 in
total.
Every council in the UK is required to publish planning
documents online as part of central government targets to put all
local authority services on the web. Planning departments have to
meet an additional set of targets - the 21 Pendleton criteria - to
ensure councils meet common standards of good presentation and
legibility.
Woking Borough Council chose document management company
SpectrumITech to both supply the software and scan the documents as
a managed service. The supplier receives copies of every planning
document that the council receives. It scans and indexes the
documents before uploading them onto its application.
Council officers and members of the public can view any document
using SpectrumITech's Viewportal document management system.
Planning documents can be viewed without downloading additional
software, and the application will run over a standard internet
connection.
Whenever an application for planning permission is processed, a
series of documents is generated electronically. These include
decision notices, officer's reports and correspondence with the
people making the application.
The council also needs to correspond with statutory bodies, such
as the local water companies, or organisations that adjudicate on
planning disputes, such as the Environment Council.
Woking has integrated Viewportal with its own planning
application system, and council officers can access the document
management system using the planning department's own core
system.
The council said its main reason for implementing a document
management system was the need to comply with the Whitehall target
of e-enabling all local government services by the end of 2005.
After implementing the system in time to meet the 2005 deadline,
the council has further developed the application to improve the
quality of the planning service. It said it had already realised
some cost savings from being able to access all of its planning
documents electronically.
More information:
www.pendleton-assoc.com/PPA-criteria.html
www.woking.gov.uk/council/planning/planningapplications