January 2019: Digital management of sustainable drainage applications – Wales take the lead
On January 7th 2019 Schedule 3 of the Flood & Water Management Act (FWMA) came in to force authorised by the Welsh Government.
Schedule 3 requires “all Construction work which has drainage implications to have approval by a SuDs approving body (SAB), prior to Commencement.”
It also requires:
- Technical approval of applications to ensure construction work adheres to the Mandatory National Standards for SuDs published by Welsh Ministers;
- Enforcement/regulatory powers if a SuDs scheme is determined to have contravened the approved design by the SAB
- Mandatory adoption of SuDS that have been previously approved by the SAB
Given the significant number of Welsh Authorities using AMX for the management of their drainage and flood assets and in line with AMX Solutions’ ethos of constant product improvement to support clients, AMX undertook to develop additional functionality within the system to help support SAB’s in the management of SuDS applications with its own plug-in module.
The module supports all steps in the application, from initial submission, through consultation and review (including capture of all supporting documentation), to the final adoption of assets into the council’s Asset Register, supporting ongoing maintenance planning.
The design process involved the formation of a working group of team leaders from a number of customer sites, working alongside the AMX development team to scope the process and requirements.
With an outline plan, AMX set about creating the new module within the system using their unique customisable asset management software and in December clients were issued with an update to apply the configuration changes to their databases. Given the time restrictions, we were pleased to be able to deliver this module in time to begin logging and reporting of applications from the 7th January deadline.
The plan looking ahead is to capture feedback as customers use the solution, ensuring any enhancements and additional functions can be incorporated into AMX to aid the SAB in its role. In an ideal world the mandatory 42 page national application document itself will be available in a digital format and connect directly with the system to reduce the manual entry of data from paper and place the responsibility on the applicant to provide as much data as possible from the outset, and we look forward to being able to support this goal.