Every council infringements team knows the feeling: review request submissions arrive faster than they can be assessed. The queue grows, and the backlog pushes out to 30, then 60 and then 90 days.
At Warrnambool City Council, the 90-day rule, whereby after 90 days an unreviewed submission is automatically cancelled, was putting huge pressure on the team of three.
As the backlog grew, reviews were conducted less systematically and were taking longer, residents were increasingly frustrated, and ultimately council was facing a substantial loss of revenue.
Warrnambool didn't just reduce the backlog. They cleared it, and they now treat zero reviews in backlog as the standard to meet, not a one-off achievement.
Part of that shift came from rethinking how the work gets done. By developing the Infringement Review Assistant, which integrates with council's existing systems and uses automation and AI to prepare each submission for assessment, officers now spend their time on the decision rather than on gathering and sorting information. The team describes it as a game changer, and it's what made zero achievable rather than aspirational.
In this candid 45–60 minute conversation, Symphony3 talks with James Plozza, Governance Manager, and Mark Handby, Manager City Safety, about how they got there, and what changed for their team.
In this session, you'll hear:
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Why the backlog built up, and how the 90-day rule forced the council to act rather than keep managing around the problem.
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Why zero is the right benchmark, and what it actually takes, in process, people and tools, to reach it and how they plan to stay there.
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How they did it, including how integration and AI changed the way reviews are prepared, and the friction they deliberately kept in the process so officers stayed in control of every decision and fairness wasn't traded for speed.
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The measured results: review time, turnaround, hours returned to the team, and revenue protected.
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What a team of three did with the time they got back, and what that means for the service residents receive.
This session is for local laws, city safety, compliance, governance and customer service leaders, as well as CEOs, directors and anyone responsible for statutory timeframes, service performance and financial sustainability. It's relevant whether your review queue is already under pressure or you want to make sure it never gets there.
There will be time for your questions at the end, so bring the problems your own team is dealing with.