Approaches to Information Management in County Planning Authorities in England and Wales

The paper describes the findings of a survey of information management in the 54 country planning authorities of England and Wales. They indicate the extent to which current county planning practice is directed towards economic regeneration and the degree to which monitoring activities are still regarded as evolving despite the long time interval that has elapsed in many cases since the initial submission of the County structure plans. They show that there is a strong relationship between attitudes towards data collection, information handling and data dissemination. Authorities that favour 'hard' information handling strategies tend also to adopt a restricted approach to data collection, employing regular reporting procedures, and regard lack of relevant information as the most serious operational problem, whereas authorities that favour 'soft' documentary information handling strategies tend to favour comprehensive information gathering strategies, use ad hoc reporting procedures and regard information retrieval and lack of communication channels as the most serious operational problem.