Inner West Council
Procure Spot was engaged by the Inner West Council in 2022 to assist on their Development Application (DA) Process Improvement project. The aim of the project was to improve DA processes by identifying and implementing efficiencies for increased performance.
Our work successfully delivered on this objective and was implemented in three project phases – Process Discovery, Process Design, and Process Implementation.
During the Process Discovery phase, we established a project control group, conducted a DA process audit, and mapped the current state process. Creating a project group and understanding the context of the current state enabled us to identify potential efficiency gains.
The next phase of Process Design involved facilitating workshops with staff and stakeholders to design and test productivity gains, as well as to map the optimal future state process.
Finally, the Process Implementation phase involved project management and implementation of the revised process with efficiency gains embedded. We also reviewed and amended the procedures manual to ensure an updated and comprehensive manual that documented the new DA process for staff.
The outcome of our work was an optimisation of the council’s DA process from 286 steps to 54 steps to reach a DA determination. This resulted in dramatically reduced processing timeframes for applicants, along with many other benefits for staff and stakeholders.