The building permit board of Uppsala municipality

Challenge

Uppsala municipality had for many years seen a need to improve its management of building permits. A series of actions were taken, including employing more clerks to manage an increased number of errands. However, many aspects were still not working well enough, which was clear from the surveys of customer satisfaction that were performed.

The process of applying for a building permit was confusing, complex, and required large administrative efforts from both the clerk and the applicant. A number of clarifications were needed, including regarding what kinds of projects required a building permit and what an application had to contain. Having the possibility to get a cost estimate at an early stage was also important.

Results

Now, Uppsala municipality has a well-functioning e-service that simplifies work for the clerks and provides applicants with a smoother building permit application process and clearer answers to their questions.

An important insight that arose during the course of the project was that the clerks were not always in complete agreement regarding the correct answer in every situation. Therefore, the project drew up a descriptive rulebook or decision tree on how building permits should be managed within Uppsala municipality. With these decisions trees, the clerks can quickly narrow down exactly what the applicant needs to do and more easily help them determine whether or not a building permit is needed. Answers can more easily be given regarding which rules apply to a specific errand and also encompass which documents and data an application will need to include. A positive side effect of the decision trees is that all clerks can now use the same interpretations. In addition, the materials are valuable resources when new clerks are employed.

Going forward, it is also possible to keep working on integrating the e-service with other existing systems and iteratively create improvements and gradually launch new and improved releases.