THE NATIONAL Land Agency (NLA) says it has slashed the turnaround time for the processing of survey plans from approximately seven months to seven weeks.
This improvement in turnaround time was achieved through the implementation of a strategy designed to increase efficiency by cutting down on bottlenecks in the system, said Major Patrick Aiken, Manager of the Plan Examination, and Certification Branch at the NLA.
"This shorter turnaround time means we will be doing a greater volume of plans," Major Aiken said. This offers the organisation the potential for increased revenue.
It will also boost the speed of the titling process as survey plans, required with title applications, are ready faster, he said. "One can now get that plan back in two months and so apply for the title at an earlier date."
This improvement in efficiency and service delivery has produced an improvement in customer satisfaction.
"They had been improving steadily, and over the last three months, the system has really sped up," said Jubert Masters, a Commissioned Land Surveyor and one of the partners of Masters, Johnson & Associates in Spanish Town, which submits a number of plans weekly. He has been dealing directly with the Surveys & Mapping Division, formerly Survey Department, since 1972.
"Now I get my stuff back in about eight weeks on average," Mr. Masters said.
NEW SCHEME
Major Aiken said the new scheme was implemented in 2001 and within the first months of execution, processing time was reduced to 13 weeks. By April 2002, turnaround time was down to ten weeks. "Presently, we are averaging about seven and a half weeks, and this is not due to automation," the Manager said.
"I get less complaints from my customers," Mr. Masters said. "They used to think that we were sitting on the plans and keeping them back."
The Plan Examination and Certification Branch used to hold cadastral plans for months and even years, as they traversed the checking and certification process, which might include the physical and on-location examination of the survey marks shown on the plans.
A cadastral plan is essentially a scaled drawing of a parcel of land represented on paper, showing the shape and dimensions of the parcel or parcels surveyed and must be made by a commissioned land surveyor in accordance with the provisions of the Land Surveyors Regulations.
In 2001, a Business Process Improvement (BPI) study was carried out on the plan checking process in the Surveys & Mapping Division, under which the Plan Examination and Certification Division falls, and it was discovered that the average turnaround time - from submission to approval of any one plan was in the region of 26 weeks.
JIS
"The process was long-winded. There is a central section called the Plan Registry, where all plans for checking are received, recorded and dispatched for checking. What the study showed, is that for all the different checking stages, the plans were always dispatched from the centre, i.e., that they went back there and out again for the next checking stage. This was really a bottle-neck in the system," Major Aiken says.
The BPI made recommendations to make the process more efficient, and in November 2001, the NLA started a new procedure.
PRODUCTION-LINE SYSTEM
"We started a production-line system. The plan goes along a production line and all the information of the plan's movement is sent back to the Plan Registry. Staff members were given reasonable daily targets to achieve and they had to report weekly on their progress, which was monitored by the supervisor," says Major Aiken, who requested progress reports from all checking officers and their supervisors.
The new process for checking and certifying plans involves the Computing Office where the plans go first. There, it is verified that the surveyor complied with all the rules and regulations.
CORRECT FIGURE
"We check to see that the plotting of the figure is correctly represented and that the adjoining owners are duly notified of the survey. The surveyor also has to supply us with all the necessary information in terms of whether there was any objection to the survey," explains Keith Lawrence, Senior Checking Officer and supervisor of the Computing Office in the Surveys and Mapping Division.
This is followed by the Comparison Checking department, which compares the pre-check plans (cadastral survey plans) against the registered land titles, to ensure that the "boundaries are in keeping with the old surveys and there is no dual registration or encroachment, that is, overlap of registered boundaries," says Major Aiken.
"In cases where there is departure from the registered boundary, the surveyor is required to indicate the registered boundary and give the reason why he departs from that boundary," adds Supervisor of the Comparison Checking Section, Richard Donald.
From there, the plans are sent to the Chief Checking Officer, who does a cursory check of the report and decides whether the plan should be approved or rejected.
"The plans, which are selected for approval, would come to the manager for final signing off. Those that are rejected are returned to the surveyor for him or her to make the corrections to the plan," explains Major Aiken.
