Published Wednesday, 6 October 2021

The State Planning Commission has released the first Performance Indicators Scheme Annual Report for the 2020-21 financial year, which details the performance of South Australia’s planning system.

The report outlines key performance indicators, emerging trends and insights for planning and development across the state, and highlights insights and ideas to potentially improve the system.

The report is based on performance data outlined in the Performance Indicators Scheme (Scheme) – which came into full effect in March 2021 with the introduction of the new state-wide planning system. The report draws from a single data source, the Development Application Processing system (DAP), and enables comparison with the planning system’s performance over time.

As the planning system was introduced in stages, the first report does not draw any concrete conclusions; however, it does provide encouraging early observations and highlights a raft of noteworthy improvements achieved under the ePlanning system, including:

  • greater ability to analyse trends (and why they are developing) and identifying recurring issues which in-turn can be used to improve the planning system
  • 90% of granted consents were assessed within statutory timeframes
  • Deemed-to-Satisfy developments account for 15% of total lodgements – an increase from the complying development pathway under the previous Development Act 1993
  • average processing time for performance assessed applications are markedly lower when compared to the equivalent merit-based assessments under the old system.

The Scheme is overseen and reported on by the State Planning Commission, with approval from the Minister, and forms the primary reference for the Annual Report each financial year.

The Commission is required to prepare the Performance Indicators Annual Report every year with the next report due to the Minister by 30 September 2022.

For the 2021-22 Report, it is expected that the system’s performance indicators will be further refined and analysed as more definitive trends begin to develop and more ideas for system improvement are identified.


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