GovServices: Development Application & Permit Assessment
How GetPost Labs would build the council planning officer's workflow: development and permit applications checked for completeness and referrals drafted by AI agents, statutory timeframes held by rules, and every assessment and recommendation left with your planners.
Executive Summary
The Problem: Every application a council receives has to be checked for completeness, sent to the right referral agencies, assessed against the planning scheme and written up as a report and recommendation — all against a statutory clock. The plans, forms and correspondence sit in the lodgement portal, the records system and email, so planning officers spend much of the day assembling files before they can assess anything.
The Solution: GovServices gives the completeness check, the referral letters and the first draft of the report's background sections to AI agents, keeps statutory timeframes, fees and referral triggers as fixed rules in software, and leaves the assessment, the recommendation and the decision with your planning officers and delegates.
The Outcome: Planning officers start from a complete, checked file instead of assembling one, applicants hear sooner what is missing, and every step of the assessment is on one record.
The Challenge
Understanding the problem space
"Liaising with referral authorities and key stakeholders throughout the application process."
— A duty listed in a current Australian planning officer job ad (SEEK, September 2026)
Across 14 current council planning officer and development assessment ads, the job is consistent: assess and process development and planning permit applications, give planning advice to applicants and the community, liaise with referral authorities, and prepare reports and recommendations for council or the assessment panel.
Before any assessment can start, someone has to open each lodgement, check the forms and plans are all there, work out which referral agencies it triggers and write to each of them. When the portal, the records system and email don't join up, that set-up work eats into the statutory timeframe — and the applicant waits to hear that a plan was missing.
Source: 14 council planning officer and development assessment job ads in Australia on SEEK, September 2026. Employers not named.
The Solution
What GetPost Labs would build
Core Capabilities
Where the Time Comes Back
Assessing, not assembling
The planning officer stops assembling each file by hand and starts from a checked, complete application:
Lodgement Checks
Open every PDF, tick the checklist by hand, then write to the applicant about what is missing.
The agent has checked the lodgement and drafted the request for the missing plan. The officer confirms and sends it.
Referrals
Work out the referral agencies, write each letter, and track who has responded in a spreadsheet.
Triggers checked by rules, letters drafted by the agent, and responses tracked against the statutory clock.
Assessment Reports
Copy the site description and proposal details from the application into the report template.
Background sections arrive drafted from the file. The planner spends the time on the assessment and the recommendation.
BPMN Workflow
The business process modelled
Development Application: Lodged to Decided
User Journey
A Development Application, Lodged to Decided
Scenario: A regional council receives an application for a two-lot subdivision on a rural residential block beside a state-controlled road.
Lodges the plans, site survey and application form through the council portal
Checks the lodgement against the checklist, finds the stormwater plan is missing, and drafts a request to the applicant for the officer to send
Confirms the fee is paid, starts the statutory clock, and stops it while the requested information is outstanding. Flags the state-controlled road as a referral trigger
Drafts the referral to the state road agency and assembles the plans and survey to go with it
Assesses the proposal against the planning scheme, inspects the site and reads the referral response
Writes the assessment and recommends approval with conditions. The manager decides under delegation
The decision notice is issued within the statutory timeframe and the applicant notified. Lodgement, referral, report and decision kept on one record
Outcome: The application is decided with every check, referral and recommendation on one record. The agent assembled the file; the planner assessed it and the delegate decided.
Interactive Prototype
Functional dashboard demonstrating the concept
Case Dashboard
Citizen services
© 2026 GETPOST Labs. Full Stack Engineering Solutions.
Functional prototype. Click on cells and entries to see interactions.
System Context
Where GovServices fits in the ecosystem
Have a Similar Problem?
This is the kind of workflow automation GetPost Labs builds. If your organisation has similar challenges, we'd love to discuss how a custom solution might help.