Eplanning: What is the Attitude towards Information Technology in the New South Wales (Australia) Planning System

Abstract

The limited research on ePlanning in Australia, a perceived slow take up of ePlanning in the NSW planning system and the release of a set of ePlanning recommendations as part of a larger planning reform package in November 2007 are the three main reasons for conducting the research contained in this paper. The aim of this research is to firstly, discover the attitudes of planners in the NSW planning system towards Information Technology and secondly, to discover what the planners' understanding of the ePlanning recommendations are. To achieve this, an online survey of 171 planning staff working in NSW local government was conducted during August and September, 2008. This research was limited to the attitudes of council planning staff and deliberately did not cover in detail the ePlanning areas of Planning Support Systems, Decision Support Systems and Expert Systems as they are not part of the Department's recommendations. 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 ePlanning recommendations with insightful additional comments collected about the advantages of ePlanning tools and the wider implications for the planning system. Overall, this research found NSW planners to be supportive and understanding of the new technologies that are largely yet to be implemented in their workplaces.