How do I respond to an Action notice?
When an Action notice is issued by the Authority, the applicant is required to respond to the Action notice within the software within a particular legislative timeframe. The process in which Action notices are responded to happens within the Further action status.
Response timeframes vary by region, check on the Action notice document or contact your authority to confirm these timeframes.
Why is an action notice being issued?
Action notices are usually issued as the application material submitted is incorrect or missing something. Some examples include:
the application fee may still need to be paid,
the application material is missing a form,
a form may state the incorrect address, or
the correct application type or development type has not been selected.
Steps within the Further action process |
When an Action notice is issued, the applicant will receive an email with a link to the application in the software and a copy of the Action notice PDF document.
Some of your Information request items are attached to specific steps and workflows within the software, each of them is now a task for you to complete, each Action notice item requires a response.
How to respond to an Action notice
1. Select the links in the email to open both the PDF document for review and the application in the software.
It is important that you are still reviewing the PDF document, as there may be information on the document that isn't available in the software. This may include information on how and when to respond to the requests.
2. The software will open the application on the step that requires action. E.g. If the authority has identified that there is an action notice item about the proposal's category of assessment the user will be taken to the Categories step to complete a response about the categories action notice item.
3. In the left hand navigational panel using the task counter to locate the component which has outstanding task for you to complete.
4. Some action notice items (authority request) will be visible in the right hand panel in a ‘Council assessment' text block situated directly above where ‘Applicant response’ text box. Other items in the Authority’s action notice may need to be actioned outside the software, at another step in the workflow, or using the edit application tool located in the top toolbar next to the name of the application. We have provided a handy guide in the table at the end of this article about how to respond to the Authority’s information request items where no task is generated for you to complete in the software.
The image below shows an example of an Action notice item about the State assessment and referral for Oil and Gas infrastructure. The Authorities request is identified in the green box.
4. The Applicant is provided with the option to respond to the request within the ‘Applicant Response’ text box. If required, the Applicant can also change their answer to the item.
In the example above the applicant has responded to the request (shown in red) and they may choose to update their category answer from ‘Not applicable’ to ‘Impact assessable’.
5. Mark the requested item complete and move to your next task. Use the navigation panels on the left side of the screen and the steps along the top of the screen to determine your incomplete tasks. Steps will become orange when they have incomplete tasks within them.
You have the option to update any of your assessment answers while the application is within the Further action status. This could include updating a response to assessment criteria at the Reporting - Codes (Applicant) step, even though no action notice request was made of that item. Your previous responses and answers are stored in the historic versions of the application.
6. Once you have completed your tasks for the Action notice items, and made any changes to the application, you can now lodge the application back to the Authority to view your changes and responses.
7. Navigate to the Publish (Applicant) step. Here you can refresh the parts of your development application.
A summary of changes will populate at the end of the Executive summary in your Planning report PDF (Part 2 - Documents), listing changes between the previous status and this status.
8. Select the Publish button to submit the response to the Action notice. A pop-up will generate asking you to confirm you would like the application to be re-submitted. Select Yes.
9. The status of the application will update from Further action status to Validating status. The application will then be locked for the applicant from making changes.
10. The Authority assessment team will be notified by email that a response to the action notice has been lodged.
Never worry about losing your copy of the Action notice PDF. The software stores all documents between the applicant and authority in the Documents feature feature. Use this feature at any time to retrieve historical notices and reports.
