Investigating the Role of Electronic Planning within Planning Reform

Abstract

The limited research on e-Planning in Australia, a perceived slow take up of e-Planning in the New South Wales (NSW) planning system, and the release of a set of e-Planning recommendations as part of a larger planning reform package in November 2007 are the three main reasons for conducting this research. The goal of this paper is to discover the attitudes of planners in the NSW planning system toward Information Technology, and secondly, what the planners understanding of the e-Planning recommendations are. An online survey of 171 planning staff working in NSW local government was conducted during August and September 2008. The survey results confirmed that planners in the NSW planning system are using a wide variety of IT applications, and that although there are frustrations, their attitude is supportive of using IT in their workplace. Participants also demonstrated a strong understanding of the e-Planning recommendations with insightful additional comments collected about the advantages of e-Planning tools and the wider implications for the planning system. Overall, this research has investigated the attitude of planners and found them to be supportive and understanding of the new technologies that are largely yet to be implemented in their workplaces.