Land Surveyors

1426 The Hon. A. PICCOLO (Light) (24 September 2019). Are you confident that regional council assessment panels can recruit or train their existing members to meet the standards set under the accredited professional scheme?

The Hon. S.K. KNOLL (Schubert—Minister for Transport, Infrastructure and Local Government, Minister for Planning): I have been advised the following—

The Accredited Professionals Scheme aims to enhance the reliability, flexibility and accountability of decision-makers in the planning system and give development applicants greater confidence in the way that their development applications are assessed. As such, Council Assessment Panel members will need to apply and become accredited at Planning Level 2 prior to the code going live in their council area. Panel members will need to demonstrate they hold relevant qualifications, skills and experience to achieve Planning Level 2 accreditation.

The Accreditation Authority recognises the implementation of the scheme is in its transitional phase, and in some cases there will be a need for flexibility. This will be particularly so in the regional areas of South Australia. As such, the Accreditation Authority has powers under the Planning, Development and Infrastructure (Accredited Professionals) Regulations 2019 to approve alternative qualifications, experience and technical skills on a case-by-case basis, and may grant conditional accreditation in particular circumstances, which may be particularly relevant in some regional areas.

It should also be noted that establishing joint planning boards, or regional assessment panels under the new system also brings opportunity to rationalise development assessment functions across councils. This is particularly useful for some smaller councils in regional areas who process very low volumes of development applications (e.g. less than 20 applications per year).