The Planning Portal and IBM extend successful six-year relationship with new three-year agreement.

Bristol, UK - 07 May 2009: IBM (NYSE:IBM) and the Planning Portal, part of the Department for Communities and Local Government and responsible for the Government’s gateway to planning applications and policy information throughout England and Wales, today announced a three-year strategic agreement for IBM to upgrade and host the Planning Portal website.

IBM will run a new flexible service based on IBM applications and infrastructure which, over a three-year period, has the potential to deliver more than £300 million in savings to the Planning Portal’s users which include local authorities, businesses and private individuals by saving reams of paper and all the hardcopy filing, postage and administrative processes that go with it.

Chris Kendall, the Planning Portal Director, said "I am delighted that we will build upon the partnership with IBM that has taken us from a seed of an idea, to deliver real benefits to citizens and industry alike. IBM have made a great effort to understand the services we wish to provide and have brought creativity and expertise working with us to develop an enabling solution. I am confident that the Planning Portal will continue to lead the market in providing online planning services".

All 432 Local Planning Authorities are now directly linked. Visitors to the site can access local development plans, find out more about building regulations, submit and monitor the progress of planning applications. The convenience has meant that visitor numbers have grown to around 600,000 a month – already meeting the 2011 targets and over 30% of the total planning applications in England and Wales are now submitted online. The new system will incorporate new features, use web 2.0 personalisation technologies and will be designed for flexibility and rapid future evolution. The aim is to increase online submissions to over 60% by March 2011 and ultimately to encourage every homeowner and business to use the electronic system.

IBM has provided and managed the Planning Portal’s applications and infrastructure since 2002 when the site was launched as part of the Government’s drive to make the town planning system more transparent and efficient, and to encourage more people to make electronic applications, rather than send in paper documents.

Norman Pooley, who runs a building design consultancy in Hunderthwaite, County Durham explained "Once the client has given final approval the planning application is submitted electronically via the Planning Portal. The plans whizz through to the local planning office and from them on to English Nature and all the other statutory consultees. It’s a professional, seamless process and very easy to use".

Maria Ferguson, former Development Control Manager at Teesdale District Council added "Electronic submission cuts out the time-consuming process of scanning plans and linking drawings to files and eliminates the need for data entry. More than a 65 per cent of our applications are now submitted electronically and the team can process ten a day compared to three paper forms. We are a small authority with limited resources and that makes a massive difference".

Summarising the deal, John Higgs, IBM Global Business Services said "the Planning Portal has always been a leader in applying innovation to online government services: the awards they have collected over the years are evidence of that. At IBM we have worked extensively with them to help transform the planning process. So I was really pleased with their decision to select IBM to help them to further develop and rollout solutions which are key to delivering the Agency's ambitious vision for planning.

The contract was signed in December 2008.

Notes to Editors

To date, the Planning Portal has won the following awards:

Whitehall & Westminster World Civil Service Awards 2008 - Public Value Award
GC Awards for Innovation 2008 - Best Project delivering efficiency
Good Communications Award 2006 for Central Government Website
Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI) Planning Award 2005 for Planning Process: e-Planning
e-Government National Award 2004 for Central Government: Strategic Plan/Achievement
Government Computing BT Syntegra Award for Innovation 2004
e-Government National Award 2004 for Central e-Government Excellence: Team

About the Planning portal

For further information visit: www.planningportal.gov.uk

About IBM

For more information about IBM in the UK public sector, visit: ibm.com/easyaccess/publicsector

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