The Greater London Authority (GLA) has begun to look for a new back office system to support its role in dealing with planning applications in the capital.
It has decided the existing system, built in-house, is no longer fit for purpose and has gone to the market for one that is hosted externally and could support agile working within the service.
While London’s local authorities handle most planning applications in the city, those that potentially have a strategic importance, known as ‘referred’ applications, go to the GLA for approval. These generally involve developments of 150 or more residential units, buildings over 30 metres in height and any developments on Green Belt of Metropolitan Open Land.
In the relevant procurement notice the GLA has highlighted the ability to create a workflow and performance manage the work, and to make it possible to analyse trends in developments and impacts on London.
Other requirements are a consistent mechanism for receiving referrals, more automation in the processes, the ability to record, monitor and extract data, and to be able to find related documents.
The GLA has indicated that any deal is likely to run for two years with the option to extend for one more.
The move reflects the GLAs prioritisation of modernising planning activities. Earlier this year it revealed plans for a live hub of planning and development data to go beyond the capabilities of the existing London Development Database, and it is planning to develop a 3D platform for making details of planning proposals available to the public.
Image by Mai-Linh Doan, CC SA 2.0 France through Wikimedia
