Earlier this month the National Planning Improvement Champion was appointed following provisions made in the the Planning (Scotland) Act 2019. Craig McLaren has taken on this role based at the Improvement Service and HOPS are glad to see this position has been appointed to someone with such broad knowledge of the Scottish Planning system and existing good relationship with all stakeholders from his previous work at RTPI Scotland.
As the Champion begins engaging with all stakeholders, we are keen to work further with him to assess what can be done to improve performance processes for Planning Authorities. We see this independent view of the system as being a vital component in establishing a constructive and supportive approach to how planning performance is monitored.
There is a long established track record of monitoring planning performance in Scotland with Planning Authorities submitting Planning Performance Framework reports to Scottish Ministers for the past 12 years. These reports are used in a variety of ways by authorities; promotion of the planning service work, capturing ongoing work, as well as for internal auditing purposes. In those 12 years we have collected a wealth of information on good practice, and across the board have seen improvements on the indicators set by Government. We hope that this work will form a good basis for the Champion to work upon, looking towards the goal of planning performance being the delivery of improved quality of outcomes from the planning system.
HOPS 