Exercise to cut red tape in development process

Three audits aiming to free the planning process from unnecessary bureaucracy would be carried out, Rural Affairs and Environment Minister George Pullicino said yesterday.

The audits deal with the entire application process for development, the development permission application report which states whether an application should be approved and the architects' submissions when applying for permits.

The minister said an important change was the appointment of Nationalist MP Joe Falzon as the audit officer a few months ago, who has since carried out about 60 investigations on reports received from the public.

Mr Pullicino said that the first audit had already started taking place and is being carried out by the Management Efficiency Unit within the Prime Minister's Office. He explained that this audit dealt with the whole application process, including the consultations that the Malta Environment and Planning Authority needed to carry out with other government agencies and departments.

The minister explained that Mepa is a clear example of a "one-stop-shop" which saves the applicant from having to go from department to department. However, he said, this also meant that whenever there was an objection to an application, it was Mepa that appeared to be refusing the application. All government departments had a role to play in the application process and whether they were efficient or not was reflected in the process.

The second audit deals with the development permission application report prepared by Mepa case officers. The minister said it was imperative that the report was comprehensive and this audit would establish whether there were any patterns of bad reports by certain case officers. It would also address what should happen afterwards. If the reports of a particular case officer were found to be lacking, the audit would seek to address what type of training should be given and if the standard of the reports still did not rise the authority would need to see what action to take.

The third audit, Mr Pullicino explained, deals with the quality of submissions made by architects when presenting an application for a permit. He said weak submissions did not help an efficient process and the audit will examine the quality and completeness of such submissions as well as examine whether other requests for information by Mepa were justified.

"These audits would involve consultations with those interested in the planning process and the last two audits would include the participation of representatives from the Chamber of Architects, the Users Committee and the Planning Directorate," he said.

Mr Pullicino also inaugurated a new office for the Planning Appeals Board. He said situated just down the road from Mepa the location of the office was very convenient while the physical distance would lead to more apparent autonomy between the two.

The board is split into two boards which carry out the same job. One of the boards' chairmen - Ramon Rossignaud - said there is a misconception that the board is part of the authority but it is in fact a separate body.

The other board's chairman - Tania Sciberras Camilleri - recalled that when the appeals board was set up in 1993 it dealt with 207 appeals. The number of appeals continued to increase year after year until in 1998 more than 900 were dealt with. These have now gone down to an average of 400 a year.

Mr Pullicino said amendments to the law three years ago meant that when an applicant asked the Development Control Commission to reconsider an application he had the chance to change the original plans to make the application more acceptable. Through the amendment, the applicant does not need to appeal, and about 75 per cent of the cases which had been recommended for refusal were accepted by the commission.