Special Edition: Think Like a Place-Based Regulator - Regulatory Practice in Local Government — Expert Guidance Series

Regulatory Practice in Local Government — Expert Guidance Series

Following the completion of our Regulatory Practice in Local Government — Expert Guidance Series, this special edition explores an emerging perspective that is increasingly important for modern local government regulators: thinking through place.

Across the series, we examined purpose, risk-based decision-making, partnership, capability, documentation, continuous improvement, integration, communication, and integrity. Together, these principles create the foundation of effective regulatory practice. This special edition builds on that foundation by asking a further question:

How do we understand and respond to risk as it is experienced by communities?

A place-based perspective helps answer that question.

Place-based regulation does not replace risk-based regulation. It strengthens it.

Risk-based regulation helps councils determine what matters most. A place-based perspective helps councils understand where risks are emerging, how they interact, and how the community experiences their impact.

It encourages regulators to look beyond individual cases, organisational structures, and legislative boundaries to better understand the places, communities, industries, and environments they serve.

What Do We Mean by a Place-Based Regulatory Perspective?

In this guidance, a place-based regulatory perspective means using local context, geographic patterns, community experience and cross-functional intelligence to improve risk identification, prioritisation and regulatory response. It is a practical lens for understanding risk, not a separate source of regulatory authority or a substitute for legislation, policy or established decision-making requirements.

Traditional regulatory practice often focuses on individual matters:

• A complaint

• An inspection

• An approval

• An enforcement action

These activities remain important, but effective regulation requires a broader view.

A place-based regulator asks:

What is happening in this location, community or precinct, and how do local industries, development patterns and environmental conditions influence the risk?

Every place has unique characteristics that influence compliance and risk, including:

• Population growth

• Development activity

• Industry concentration

• Community expectations

• Environmental constraints

• Economic conditions

• Historical compliance trends

Understanding these factors helps regulators identify emerging issues before they become significant problems.

A place-based perspective recognises that risk is not evenly distributed across a local government area. Some locations, industries, development areas, or communities may face higher regulatory pressure, greater vulnerability, or more complex patterns of non-compliance.

This approach helps councils see the broader picture behind individual cases.

Place-Based Regulation Strengthens Risk-Based Practice

Place-based regulation gives risk-based regulation a practical lens.

Risk-based regulation asks:

What presents the greatest risk?

A place-based perspective asks:

Where is that risk emerging, how is it interacting with other issues, and how is the community experiencing it?

This helps councils move beyond isolated transactions and better understand the broader conditions that may be contributing to harm, non-compliance, or community concern.

It also supports more proportionate decision-making. Not every location, industry, or issue requires the same level of intervention. Some matters may be best addressed through education and engagement. Others may require inspection, coordinated compliance activity, escalation, or enforcement.

The value of a place-based approach is that it helps councils select a lawful and proportionate response for the right problem, audience and location.

The Community Sees One Council, Not Many Teams

Councils organise themselves into specialist areas for good reason.

Building Compliance, Plumbing Compliance, Development Compliance, Environmental Health, Local Laws, Community Safety, and other functions each perform distinct and important roles.

These specialist roles, delegations, and statutory responsibilities remain essential. A place-based approach does not remove the need for clear decision-making authority, legislative boundaries, or accountable regulatory practice.

A place-based perspective informs how a council understands, prioritises and coordinates its regulatory work. It does not expand council’s statutory powers, displace legal requirements, or authorise an officer to act beyond their role, delegation or jurisdiction. Any regulatory action must continue to be taken by the properly authorised decision-maker for a lawful purpose and in accordance with applicable procedural requirements.

However, the community does not experience a council through those internal structures.

Residents and businesses rarely distinguish between organisational charts, business units, or legislative responsibilities.

They see one Council.

A resident concerned about a development site may observe:

• Building work

• Sediment runoff

• Noise impacts

• Parking issues

• Public safety concerns

• Damage to public assets

Internally, these matters may involve several teams.

Externally, they are experienced as a single community issue.

A place-based approach encourages councils to think and respond as one organisation while still respecting the statutory responsibilities of individual teams. It broadens the initial focus from:

“Which team has the authority and responsibility to address each aspect of the issue?”

to also ask:

“How can the council coordinate its authorised functions to respond effectively to the combined risks affecting this place?”

When this mindset is supported by effective coordination and clear accountability, communities are more likely to experience a responsive, coherent and trusted Council service.

From Program-Centric to Problem-Centric Regulation

Many regulatory systems are organised around legislative functions, service areas, and established processes.

This structure is necessary, but risks rarely organise themselves that way.

The most significant regulatory challenges often emerge as interconnected problems affecting a particular place.

Examples may include:

• Growth corridors experiencing multiple compliance pressures

• Industrial precincts generating recurring complaints

• Activity centres affected by public safety concerns

• Environmentally sensitive areas facing cumulative impacts

• Neighbourhoods experiencing persistent non-compliance

These issues frequently cross organisational and legislative boundaries.

A place-based regulator looks beyond individual incidents and seeks to understand the broader factors creating community harm.

This reflects a core principle of modern regulatory practice: where an important harm or risk is not adequately controlled through routine operations, councils should be able to organise a targeted response around the problem itself, rather than relying solely on the program, team or process that first receives the matter.

For the purposes of the targeted initiative, the problem becomes the organising focus, while statutory responsibilities, delegations and organisational accountabilities remain clear.

Not every complaint or operational issue warrants a special problem-centric response. Before establishing a targeted initiative, a council should consider whether the issue represents an important external harm, whether it is recurring or concentrated, whether routine operations are insufficient, whether the council has a lawful role, and whether meaningful improvement is achievable within available resources.

Look for Patterns, Not Just Cases

High-performing regulators recognise that every complaint, inspection, and investigation forms part of a larger picture.

Place-based regulation encourages councils to analyse:

• Geographic hotspots

• Recurring complaints

• Repeat offenders

• Development trends

• Industry clusters

• Emerging risks

• Vulnerable communities

• Environmental pressures

One complaint may be an isolated event.

Twenty similar complaints within the same locality may indicate a systemic issue, a regulatory failure point or an emerging harm that warrants further analysis and potentially a coordinated response. Complaint numbers should be interpreted carefully, as changes may reflect the underlying prevalence of a problem, changes in community awareness or reporting, improved detection, or a combination of these factors.

By identifying patterns early, councils can move beyond reacting to individual incidents and increase their capacity to prevent, contain or reduce recurring harms.

This is particularly important because some risks are not obvious from the routine workload alone. Emerging risks, persistent risks, invisible risks, and boundary-spanning risks may only become apparent when councils look across places, teams, datasets, and community feedback.

Growth Changes Risk

For rapidly growing councils, place matters more than ever.

Population growth, development activity, and changing community expectations create new and evolving risk profiles.

In high-growth councils, the geography of risk can change quickly. New estates, emerging centres, infill development, rural-residential interfaces, and environmentally sensitive areas may each present different regulatory challenges.

Growth areas may experience:

• Increased construction activity

• Greater demand for inspections

• More unauthorised works

• Environmental pressures

• Infrastructure strain

• Increased customer expectations

A location considered low risk today may become a regulatory hotspot tomorrow.

Place-based regulators continually reassess how risk is distributed across their local government area and adjust their focus accordingly.

This does not mean arbitrary or unequal treatment. It means applying consistent legal principles, decision criteria and procedural safeguards while allowing the regulatory response to reflect material differences in risk, harm, local context and compliance behaviour. Any differentiated treatment should be relevant to the regulatory purpose, proportionate to the identified risk and capable of being explained and documented.

Target Effort Where It Matters Most

Every council operates within finite resources.

Risk-based prioritisation is a legitimate and necessary exercise of regulatory discretion, but it should be structured rather than intuitive or arbitrary. Decisions about regulatory attention should be informed by relevant evidence, consistent criteria, statutory purpose, the seriousness and likelihood of harm, community vulnerability, the councils’ capacity to influence the outcome, and the consequences of taking or not taking action.

A place-based perspective supports better decisions about where to direct time, effort, and resources.

This may involve determining:

• Where proactive inspections will have the greatest impact

• Which communities need targeted education

• Where compliance campaigns should be focused

• Which risks require multi-agency responses

• Where emerging issues warrant closer monitoring

This approach ensures regulatory effort is aligned with community outcomes and risk rather than historical practices or organisational boundaries.

It also supports proportionality. The goal is not to increase regulatory activity everywhere. The goal is to direct the right level of regulatory attention to the places, problems, and harms that need it most.

What This Means in Practice

In practice, a place-based approach may involve:

• Mapping complaints and inspection outcomes

• Identifying recurring issues in growth areas

• Holding cross-team case reviews for complex locations

• Coordinating proactive inspection programs

• Sharing intelligence between regulatory teams

• Reviewing trends across suburbs, precincts, or industries

• Using local knowledge to inform education, engagement, inspection, or enforcement activity

Place helps identify where a problem is concentrated, but place alone does not explain why the relevant behaviour is occurring.

Before selecting an intervention, regulators should ask:

• Who needs to do what differently?

• What behaviour is required, in what context and by when?

• Are the relevant parties willing and able to comply?

• What attitudes, norms, capabilities, opportunities, habits, incentives or practical barriers influence the behaviour?

• Which intervention, or combination of interventions, is most likely to produce the desired change?

This behavioural diagnosis helps councils distinguish between matters requiring clearer information, capability support, changes to the physical, operational or administrative environment, stakeholder engagement, monitoring, incentives, formal enforcement, or a coordinated combination of responses.

The aim is not to create more processes.

The aim is to make regulatory efforts more targeted, coordinated, and effective.

A practical place-based approach may also help councils identify when a matter requires:

• Early education

• Targeted communication

• Technical advice

• Proactive inspection

• Coordinated compliance activity

• Formal enforcement

• Escalation to another agency or regulatory partner

For a significant place-based initiative, councils should also:

• Define the problem precisely;

• Document the evidence showing why it matters;

• Establish an appropriate baseline;

• Identify the intended risk, compliance, behavioural or community outcome;

• Distinguish intervention activity from measures of impact;

• Monitor intended and unintended effects;

• Periodically review and adjust the approach; and

• Determine when the initiative can be closed, transferred into routine operations or placed under longer-term monitoring.

Measures should be selected for their intended purpose. Activity measures such as inspections, letters or notices may help monitor implementation, but they should not be treated as proof that the underlying harm has reduced.

This reflects the judgement and craftsmanship required of modern regulators. The same tool is not appropriate for every problem, every audience, or every place.

Collaboration Becomes Essential

Places do not experience regulatory risks in silos.

A single location may involve:

• Planning risks

• Building issues

• Plumbing concerns

• Environmental impacts

• Local law matters

• Community safety considerations

No single team possesses the complete picture.

Place-based regulation strengthens collaboration through:

• Shared intelligence

• Cross-functional planning

• Coordinated responses

• Joint problem-solving

• Common risk assessments

• Clear escalation pathways

Collaboration should be supported by clear governance. Participating teams should understand who is coordinating the overall response, which authorised officer is responsible for each statutory decision, what information can lawfully be shared, how decisions will be recorded, and how differing professional views or priorities will be resolved.

The objective is not simply organisational efficiency.

It is to achieve better outcomes for the community.

When teams collaborate around a shared understanding of place, the council is better positioned to identify contributing factors, underlying conditions, and potential points of regulatory leverage; reduce duplication; manage expectations; and respond to issues before they escalate.

Combine Data with Local Knowledge

Data provides valuable insights, but numbers alone rarely tell the full story.

Some of the most valuable intelligence comes from:

• Frontline officers

• Customer interactions

• Community feedback

• Industry engagement

• Local observations

Effective place-based regulation combines:

• Geographic intelligence

• Risk information

• Complaint trends

• Inspection outcomes

• Professional judgement

• Local knowledge

The result is a richer and more accurate understanding of risk.

This is especially important in regulatory environments where some harms may be under-reported, emerging, complex, or not easily visible through standard performance measures.

A place-based regulator uses data to identify patterns and test assumptions, while also valuing the professional judgement of officers who understand what is happening on the ground. Neither data nor local experience should be accepted uncritically. Wherever practicable, insights should be corroborated across multiple sources, interpreted in context, and examined for gaps, bias, under-reporting and alternative explanations.

Digital tools, geographic information systems and integrated datasets can improve regulatory visibility, targeting and early detection. Their use must nevertheless be supported by appropriate data quality, privacy, security, access and governance controls. Automated insights or risk indicators should generally inform, rather than replace, accountable professional judgement, particularly where the resulting decision may significantly affect an individual or business.

Final Thought

Great regulators understand legislation and its intended purpose.

Exceptional local government regulators also understand places.

A place-based perspective helps councils see what residents and businesses experience every day. Communities do not encounter regulation through business units, organisational charts, or legislative frameworks. They experience it through neighbourhoods, development sites, shopping centres, waterways, streets, and public spaces.

The community sees one Council.

By understanding places, identifying patterns, and working collaboratively across organisational boundaries, councils can better direct resources, reduce harm, strengthen compliance, and deliver the outcomes their communities expect.

This perspective also supports regulatory stewardship. It encourages councils to look beyond current cases and consider whether changes in population, development, technology, industry practice, community vulnerability or the natural environment are altering the risk profile. The aim is not to predict every future problem, but to maintain the vigilance, capability and feedback systems needed to recognise emerging harms and respond before they become entrenched or reach crisis scale.

As local governments continue to grow and evolve, effective regulatory practice will increasingly need to be lawful, risk-based, intelligence-led, problem-centric, behaviourally informed and place-informed.

These elements should operate together. Law provides authority and safeguards. Risk identifies what matters most. Intelligence reveals patterns and emerging threats. Problem-centric practice focuses attention on specific harms. Behavioural insight supports effective intervention. Place provides the local context in which risks are experienced and regulatory outcomes are delivered.

Together, they support regulatory practice that is proportionate, coordinated, adaptive, and focused on effectively reducing harm while maintaining fairness, legitimacy, and public trust.