PlanScout

FOR WA LOCAL GOVERNMENT BUILDING SERVICES

Less evidence hunting.Faster BA1 reviews.

PlanScout turns a certified BA1 application pack into a requirement-by-requirement evidence map. For each council-configured requirement, it surfaces potentially relevant evidence—or a possible gap—and cites the exact document, page or drawing sheet.

Your building surveyor verifies every item and makes every professional and statutory decision.

Discuss your BA1 workflowView the reviewer demo

Start with completed applications. No production integration. Measure reviewer minutes released before committing.

DURING COUNCIL REVIEW

Locate and verify routine evidence more efficiently

See every configured requirement with a relevant evidence preview, source document, page or sheet reference and exception status. Open the source, complete the check and record the human outcome.

Review requirements and cited evidenceSelect a row
RequirementEvidence previewSourceHuman status
Property address10 Banksia Way…BA1 · page 1Awaiting review
BA3 drawing referenceRevision CBA3 · page 2Awaiting review
Uploaded drawing revisionRevision DPlans · cover sheetAwaiting review

Evidence located. Reviewer confirmation required.

BEFORE LODGEMENT

Improve submission quality — a later stage

Catch missing evidence, BA1 and BA3 mismatches, conflicting details and outdated drawing revisions before they create avoidable rework.

Applicant-facing use is enabled only after a council approves the reviewer workflow, data controls and operating model. It is a later, separate decision and forms no part of the historical backtest.

Improve the BA1 pack before lodgement

  • Missing mandatory evidence
  • BA1 and BA3 detail mismatch
  • Conflicting property information
  • Outdated drawing revision

How pack quality is improved

Better-quality application pack leads to smoother, fully evidenced council review
Less routine searchingFewer avoidable clarification loopsMore consistent review records

SECTOR EVIDENCE

The avoidable delay is measurable

Approximately 3× longer

In the WA Auditor General’s local-government sample, permits took approximately three times longer where councils had to wait for further information.

WA Auditor General

Approximately 75%

Around three quarters of the information requests reviewed related to incomplete or incorrect applications.

WA Auditor General

17% more applications

WALGA’s 2024–25 monitoring recorded 73,642 development applications, subdivision referrals and building permits across 52 participating local governments—17% more than the previous year—while average FTE decreased.

WALGA 2024–25 monitoring

External sector evidence only—not a PlanScout performance claim. The Auditor General findings are historical and based on selected councils. The WALGA figure covers broader planning and building workloads, not certified BA1 applications alone. PlanScout’s effect must be measured separately against each participating council’s completed applications.

Councils are maintaining service performance while application demand rises, specialist capacity tightens and incomplete submissions create avoidable handling. PlanScout is intended to reduce the skilled administrative effort required to maintain that performance.

THE COUNCIL OPERATIONAL PROBLEM

Qualified officers should verify evidence—not search for it

Scattered

The BA1, BA3, plans, certificates, receipts and supporting documents each hold part of the answer.

Repetitive

The same routine fields, document relationships and evidence items are located and checked across eligible applications.

Rework

Missing, conflicting or difficult-to-locate information can create clarification emails, resubmissions and additional review cycles.

Inconsistent

Different reviewers can reach the same outcome through different paths and leave different-quality supporting records.

PlanScout targets the avoidable part of the process: locating routine evidence, identifying apparent gaps and giving the reviewer an exact source from which to complete the check.

REQUIREMENT-BY-REQUIREMENT EVIDENCE PREVIEW

One view: requirement, evidence, source and human outcome

PlanScout maps the council-confirmed BA1 requirement set to relevant evidence previews across the forms, certificates, drawings and supporting documents in the application pack.

Configured requirement → evidence preview → exact source → reviewer verification → human outcome

01

See what was found

A field value, document, drawing crop or relevant excerpt.

02

Open the source

The exact document, page, drawing sheet, section or revision.

03

Complete the review

The authorised officer confirms, dismisses, amends or escalates the item.

Synthetic evidence map

PSW-DEMO-0001 · 10 Banksia Way

Select a row to preview evidence
Configured requirementPlanScout evidence statusEvidence preview and sourceHuman review status
Application property addressREQ-001 · View linked finding
Potential supporting evidence located
10 Banksia Way… · BA1 · page 1Awaiting review
Certificate of design complianceREQ-007 · View linked finding
Potential supporting evidence located
Certificate present · BA3 · page 1Awaiting review
Insurance property addressREQ-013 · View linked finding
Possible mismatch
12 Banksia Way… · HII · page 1Awaiting review
Certificate drawing referenceREQ-011 · View linked finding
Possible mismatch
Revision C · BA3 · page 2Awaiting review

PlanScout shows where relevant evidence appears. The reviewer opens the cited source, completes each check and records the human outcome.

Evidence mapping workflow

Requirement → evidence → source → status → reviewer outcome

Synthetic application pack

FormsCertificatesDrawingsSupporting evidence

Configured requirements

Statewide prescribed and statutory-form requirements, cross-document consistency checks, and the participating local government’s configured intake and workflow checks.

Requirement

Configured check and rule source

Evidence

Relevant value or document located

Source

Document and page cited

Status

Potential evidence located or exception surfaced

Reviewer outcome

Authorised reviewer records the decision

1Requirement selected
2Candidate evidence linked
3Page referenced
4Exception separated
5Human outcome recorded
Potential supporting evidence and exceptions appear in one workspace.Every result remains linked to its source document and page.The permit authority retains professional and statutory judgement.

Synthetic demonstration configuration—not accuracy, time-saving or production performance results.

PlanScout shows where relevant evidence appears. The reviewer opens the source, completes each check and records the human outcome.

Discuss your BA1 workflowView the reviewer demo

MEASURABLE COUNCIL OUTCOMES

Measure the result—not the promise

PlanScout begins with a historical suitability backtest so the council can determine whether the evidence workflow actually creates value.

Reviewer time

Minutes released per eligible pack compared with the current process.

Evidence accuracy

Whether the correct document, page or drawing sheet was cited.

Rework

Whether avoidable clarification requests or review cycles could have been reduced.

Quality

Missed issues, false positives and previews that were not useful.

Consistency

Whether reviewers reach and document outcomes more consistently.

The measure that matters: reviewer minutes released per pack.

HUMAN AND STATUTORY BOUNDARIES

PlanScout organises evidence. The surveyor decides.

The initial pathway is deliberately narrow: BA1 — Application for Building Permit – Certified for Class 1a dwellings and associated Class 10 structures.

What PlanScout does

  • holds the council’s configured requirements
  • reads the pack and surfaces potentially relevant evidence
  • provides exact source references
  • highlights possible gaps for reviewer attention
  • records reviewer-confirmed outcomes and review history

What PlanScout does not do

  • decide that a requirement is satisfied
  • undertake full NCC compliance checking
  • assess structural, fire-engineering or design merit
  • issue, refuse or condition a permit
  • replace the council’s existing systems
  • remove the authorised officer from the process

Evidence located does not mean requirement satisfied. Every item remains subject to authorised officer verification.

PlanScout’s initial pathway concerns certified building permit application packs. It may identify evidence of a prior planning approval or an unresolved prerequisite, but it does not determine the planning pathway or assess planning merit.

LOW-RISK ADOPTION PATH

Prove it before changing the live process

01

Workflow discussion

  • 20–30 minutes
  • understand the current certified BA1 process
  • identify whether evidence-location and rework are material
  • no commitment
02

Free workflow review

  • review the council’s published requirements and checklist
  • show how a configured rule set could operate
  • determine whether a historical evaluation is justified
03

Historical suitability backtest

  • completed applications only
  • evaluation and data-handling arrangements agreed first
  • no production integration
  • agreed measures and thresholds
  • written results, including poor results
04

Optional later deployment

  • considered only if the historical evidence supports it
  • production assurance completed to the council’s requirements
  • integration or applicant-facing use scoped separately
Discuss your BA1 workflowExplore the full workflow

REVIEWER WORKSPACE FIRST. APPLICANT CHECKS ONLY WHERE SEPARATELY APPROVED.

A later council-controlled extension

Once the reviewer workflow, data controls and operating model have been proven, a council may choose to enable applicant-facing checks before lodgement.

This could help identify missing evidence, BA1 and BA3 mismatches, conflicting details and outdated drawing revisions before they create council rework. It does not replace the council’s existing lodgement channel and is not part of the initial historical backtest.

REVIEWER WORKSPACE

Work through every configured requirement

Building surveyors and permit officers see a relevant evidence preview, the exact source document and location, any comparison values and the current exception status. The reviewer opens the source, completes the check and records the human outcome.

  • review the full configured requirement catalogue
  • view evidence previews
  • open the cited source document
  • check page, sheet, section and revision
  • confirm sufficient or insufficient evidence
  • escalate matters requiring professional judgement
  • record notes and an auditable outcome
  • prepare reviewer-approved suggested communication
Explore the reviewer workspace

APPLICANT WORKSPACE — LATER STAGE

Improve the pack before lodgement

Where a council later enables applicant-facing use, applicants, builders and agents would receive immediate, plain-English feedback on missing evidence, inconsistent details and revision issues before lodging through the local government’s existing channel.

  • upload or prepare the application pack
  • review missing or inconsistent evidence
  • understand the source of each issue
  • route corrections to the relevant party
  • replace corrected documents
  • prepare a better-quality pack before lodgement
Explore the applicant workspace (later stage)

A council engagement begins with the reviewer workspace using completed historical applications. Applicant-facing use is enabled only after the workflow, data controls and operating model are approved.

Public-sector due diligence

Designed for controlled evaluation before live deployment.

Before any live application data is processed, PlanScout and the participating local government must agree the architecture, data flows, access controls, retention arrangements, model-provider boundaries and contractual responsibilities.

Human oversight

PlanScout findings require human review. The authorised officer retains responsibility for all statutory actions and decisions.

Evidence and audit

Findings are designed to link to the source document, page, extracted value, configured rule and reviewer outcome.

Data boundaries

Any use of genuine council application data, including a historical backtest, must be configured and contracted so that customer application documents are not used for general model training.

Controlled access

Evaluation access, user roles and the treatment of applicant information must be agreed before live operation.

Retention and deletion

Retention periods, export requirements and secure deletion must be documented in the evaluation agreement.

Rule governance

Each configured rule should record its source, jurisdiction, application pathway, effective dates and approval status.

Do not interpret this overview as a security certification or legal compliance statement. Final controls depend on the agreed evaluation architecture and contract.

Review assurance approachEvaluation detail

Frequently asked questions

Clear boundaries from the start.

Propertise AI Group

Perth, Western Australia

Built in Perth for Western Australian workflows

A focused local government technology product.

PlanScout is developed by Propertise AI Group, a Perth-based technology company focused on reducing administrative rework in property workflows.

Founded by Paul Clark, combining software delivery, digital transformation and engineering experience.

PROVE IT ON COMPLETED BA1 APPLICATIONS

Is evidence-location consuming qualified reviewer time?

A short workflow discussion is enough to determine whether the problem is material for your team. If it is not, nothing further is proposed.

Prove it on completed BA1 applications before changing the live process.

Discuss your BA1 workflowView the reviewer demo