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Maidstone Borough Council

Outcome of Expression of Interest: Invited to apply

Applicant details

Project title: Planning and building control

Current stage: Discovery

Partners involved: Swale BC, Tunbridge Wells BC. Filter on 'planning applications' theme to see potential partners

Planning applications online have traditionally been done through the central Planning Portal. Whilst this has been a reasonable success it could be improved and now that the service is going to incur a fee the number of applications could well start to reduce and the submissions methods that are less efficient for councils increase.

There is also a need to improve the quality of applications submitted so as to reduce the number of failed applications and reduce wasted effort for the customer and planning service.

Opportunities:

  • Improve the information given to customers before any application so as to reduce the number of rejected or incomplete applications
  • Design a digital pre app and application process that works for the customer as well as better serving the needs of the planning service
  • Increased income due to better promotion and sign posting of pre app advice

  • Digital leadership training (for council leaders, service managers or senior executives)
  • Introduction to user research
  • Introduction to service design
  • Agile for teams

1 thought on “Maidstone Borough Council”

  1. As London Borough of Hackney:

    Over at Hackney we’ve been working on a project to improve the application submission process (which includes things like guidance and help whilst completing the application). I would love to link up and share knowledge/thinking?

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