sandon

Image of me presenting at the 2023 VPELA conference in front of a slide reading "Do we have a planning system that leads to integrity."

The Operation Sandon Special Report, released in July by the Independent Broad-Based Anti-Corruption Commission, is vital reading for all Victorian planners and allied professionals. This is not so much for its findings about the matters at Casey that prompted the investigation, but instead for its timely centring of the issue of integrity in the discussion of planning system reform.

Planning system reform is frequently framed primarily through a lens of red-tape reduction that sees increased system efficiency as its primary goal. However more balanced system reviews have also recognised that it is vital to maintain system effectiveness – after all, no level of regulatory burden is warranted if the planning system is not achieving the policy outcomes it is there to achieve.

However the Sandon report is an important reminder of the third key pillar of any balanced system reform package: transparency and integrity. While some system reviews have commendably highlighted this as a key focus – notably 2003’s Better Decisions Faster and the 2017 review of the Victorian Planning system by the Auditor-General – too often this aspect of system design has passed unremarked.

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IBAC’s Operation Sandon report into planning decision-making in the City of Casey, released last Thursday, has further fuelled expectations of a major shakeup of the planning system. It has long been rumoured that the state government is eager to make major changes to Victoria’s planning regime, and the report provides an opportunity to add governance and integrity justifications to those reforms.

The commission’s most dramatic recommendation is that statutory planning powers – essentially, the deciding of planning permits – be removed from elected local councillors and instead be given to independent decision-making panels. This raises the spectre of a major dilution of community input to the planning process.

This prospect was reinforced by Premier Daniel Andrews’ comment, in responding to the findings, that it was the government’s view that “the role of local councils in significant planning decisions should be reduced.”

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Integrity in the Planning System: Lessons from Sandon

Planning Integrity Reforms Must Not be a Power-Grab