Councils need to develop strategies aimed at minimising the length of time for those parts of the permit process not counted within the legislative limit of 60 days. In order to support the approach to notifying affected parties, Councils need to clearly demonstrate that they have considered whether the permit application may cause material detriment . Notices of decisions to grant or refuse planning permits need to be forwarded to referral authorities. Guidelines and time limits should be developed where permit applications are referred to other units within a Council. Improved enforcement activities need to be implemented across councils to enable the checking of compliance with the planning scheme or permit conditions.
Further effort is required to ensure consistency between planning and building permits.
Councils need to assess whether their planning schemes adequately protect buildings considered to be of heritage interest or significance. Quality assurance frameworks aimed at continuous improvement and the achievement of quality planning outcomes need to be established. There is room for improvement in the co-ordination between statutory and strategic planning operations. Councils need to consider a range of strategies to attract and retain experienced and qualified planning staff. If the Government is to apply a user-pays principle, a fee structure needs to be established that recovers a higher proportion of costs of planning processes.