Subordinate Legislation
Strategic Development Planning Authority Designation (No 1) (Scotland) Order 2008 (SSI 2008/195)<br />Strategic Development Planning Authority Designation (No 2) (Scotland) Order 2008 (SSI 2008/196)
Strategic Development Planning Authority Designation (No 3) (Scotland) Order 2008 (SSI 2008/197)<br />Strategic Development Planning Authority Designation (No 4) (Scotland) Order 2008 (SSI 2008/198)
Under agenda item 2, the committee will continue its consideration of four negative instruments. Committee members will recall that we considered the orders on 11 June and agreed to hold an evidence-taking session with ministers and officials. I welcome Stewart Stevenson MSP, Minister for Transport, Infrastructure and Climate Change, and Stephen Hall, senior planner with the planning modernisation and co-ordination division of the Scottish Government directorate for the built environment. The minister has the opportunity to make some introductory remarks about the orders before I invite questions from members.
Thank you, convener. I know that your preference was for me to come to the committee last week. Although that was not impossible, it was very helpful that you allowed me to come this week instead. Thank you for your assistance with that.
I do not want to say much in the way of opening remarks. I suspect that members know which questions they want to ask me, so I will confine myself to saying that, in essence, we have continued with the policy and direction that the previous Administration set during the previous session and that we have not identified any particular reason to take a distinctive or different path on the issues that the orders cover. I will rest my remarks at that, if that suits you, and deal with the questions that I am sure the committee has for me.
Thanks, minister—that is helpful. Jim Tolson has some questions.
Good morning, minister, and thank you very much for coming along at relatively short notice. I appreciate that it is unusual for you to be asked along for a question session on negative instruments but, as I think you understand, I and other members have some real concerns, and we appreciate this opportunity to put some points to you. I thank Mr Hall for his briefing note, which I have seen. However—with all due respect—for some matters, it is better to put things on the record.
Minister, will you give us an outline of how the ministerial powers in the instruments will be used? What right of appeal or dissent will member local authorities have in respect of all or parts of their area being included in the city regions, both before and after they are set up? An authority might have a problem and feel that its inclusion is not in its best interests.
It seems clear that each local authority should be given equal weighting, and I would like to get confirmation on the record that that is the case. How was the decision on weighting that is described in the briefing paper arrived at?
I understand that a number of areas in Scotland are not included in the system. Will you confirm which areas are not included and why? What will be the effect of developing the strategic plans within the city regions? As you know, I have a great interest in the strategic plans for my local area, as I am sure other members have in their areas. What will be the key priorities for the city regions when they are set up?
That is an omnibus question. Forgive me if I have not noted it all down—I am happy to take a supplementary question if I appear to miss something material.
I think that your core question is about how a council that is a member of a planning authority will deal with a situation in which the authority wants to put forward a plan that is at odds with what the council wants to happen. That issue is at the heart of some of the concerns that people have expressed. The strategic development planning authorities are about providing a multi-council committee that enables councils in the city region areas to co-operate in mutual interest.
For example, it is clear that Fife Council has interests in the city regions of Dundee and Edinburgh. As someone who was brought up in Fife, I am familiar with the long-standing arguments for retaining Fife as an independent council—something that has been fought and won. Nothing in this legislation changes any of that.
If Fife Council found that the Edinburgh city region authority was putting forward something with which it disagreed, it could dissent. In essence, what is put forward must be put forward on the basis of consensus. If an individual council is unable to be part of that consensus, it can put its own plans forward in its own right.
You posed the question of equal weighting. Each council that is a member of an authority will have the same number of representatives, to avoid the skewing that could take place if we were to weight the number of people who sit on an authority according to the size of councils. The mechanism is meant to allow councils to work together where there are common interests, and where the actions of one council will affect the interests of another across the boundary. In other words, it is an enabling mechanism—it does not bind councils to automatically accept the majority view. A single council can dissent and come out of the system.
You asked how many councils are outside the system. There are 20 inside, so the strict answer is that there are 12 outside. I say that that is the strict answer because—just for clarity—the two planning authorities that are also national parks are outside. The authorities will focus only on the narrow issues. The local plans and the development plans, and the relationships with Scottish Enterprise, remain councils' responsibility.
If Mr Tolson thinks that I have failed to address some of his omnibus question, he can ask again—I will write it down this time.
You have done very well in replying to the omnibus, minister. However, I seek clarification of one or two points.
Correct me if I am wrong, but I understand that Stirling is one of the 12 local authorities that are not included in the city regions. Many local authorities—in the Highlands and Islands and so on—are quite remote from our major cities and I understand why they would not be included, but why has somewhere such as Stirling, which sits between two of the major cities in Scotland, not been included?
You highlighted—quite rightly—the example of Fife, which is split between two city regions because of the business that it needs to carry on in those cities. If that is the case, why is Stirling not included? You mentioned how the right of appeal works, in that individual authorities that have a difference of opinion can put forward their own view, but the first question that I touched on was about ministerial power. I was trying to get at the issue of whether you would overrule or make a judgment in cases in which there is a split decision within a city region.
A split decision is not necessarily something that ministers would resist, because there would undoubtedly be a reason for there being a split decision. Of course, I cannot give an absolute commitment that the minister who has the powers to take a view on any plans that are submitted to him or her would not overrule what is put in front of them, because the powers are there for a purpose, but I think that you cannot force consensus. If a vital interest of a particular council is not reflected in the majority report, the minister would be pretty unwise not to take account of that in any decisions that are made. I am not giving an absolute guarantee, not least because I cannot bind any successors of mine—if there are any; I might be in office forever, who knows?
The powers are there, but I think that a minister would be unwise to overrule anyone.
By the way, I do not regard Fife as being split in any way by any of this; Fife is represented in the area to the north and the area to the south because it has interests in both areas. I know that I am being very picky, of course.
Stirling is in a geographically interesting position. I would argue that it is probably the paramount transport hub of Scotland, as virtually everything goes through Stirling—goods are drawn to Glasgow, Edinburgh, Perth, Dundee and so on, although perhaps not to Aberdeen. Stirling Council's area is quite diverse, containing the town itself as well as huge rural areas a considerable distance to the north. The current situation with regard to Stirling is the result of a judgment call backed up by its not wishing to be part of the process. Of course, nothing in what we are doing stops any council collaborating with any other council on issues of mutual interest. I imagine that Stirling will opt in to discussions and respond to consultations. However, it will not be sitting at the top table with a vote.
As I understand the regulations, the strategic development planning authority has to prepare and keep under review a strategic development plan for a strategic development plan area. Who defines that area? Is that prescribed by ministers in further instruments or does the planning authority define its own plan area?
In the first instance, the area will be proposed by the grouping itself, and need not necessarily include all of the areas of councils who are part of the authority.
I will illustrate the point using an issue that I know you are particularly interested in. If Scottish Borders Council were to say that it did not wish the southern part of its area to be included, that option could be accepted by ministers. However, I take no position about what will actually happen, because that is a matter for another day.
The issue is also germane to Mr Tolson's points. Presumably, in Fife, which will be involved in two city regions, the strategic development plan area will be split—there will be a northern bit that will fall within the ambit of Dundee and a southern bit that will fall within the ambit of Edinburgh. That means that there will be a planning split in Fife, by reference to the definition of the strategic development plan areas.
That would be Fife's choice. I would expect Fife's position to be the paramount factor when such decisions are made. I am only hypothesising, but it would not be impossible for Fife to conclude, for example, that it will leave Kirkcaldy unallocated but include Dalgety Bay in Edinburgh's sphere of influence. By the same token, Fife might decide that St Andrew's and Cupar should be part of the Dundee area, but Glenrothes should not be. In effect, Fife could be in three parts—an Edinburgh part, a Dundee part and a part that is neither Edinburgh nor Dundee. However, I would expect the views of Fife Council to be absolutely paramount in coming to any such conclusions.
Just to be clear: who decides that? Is it Fife Council, the minister or the two planning bodies?
The recommendation has to come from the authority to the minister—
The planning authority—the joint body?
Correct, but the member should recall what I said about the need for consensus and what happens if it is absent. There is a willingness among councils to work together—they recognise, for example, that decisions made in Edinburgh and Dundee affect the towns in Fife.
I do not necessarily expect major difficulties, although you are entitled and right to ask me about the mechanical process. The authority would make a recommendation to ministers and, unless there was a clear reason for the minister to believe that the recommendation was irrational, I would expect them to endorse it because it would reflect the co-operation and collaboration that we seek through the single planning authority.
We can contrast Fife with the Borders. In Fife, the process starts with an assumption that Fife will be split between two plan areas because it is affected by two cities. As the briefing prepared by Mr Hall rightly pointed out and as everyone would accept, the northern part of the Scottish Borders is in the ambit of the greater Edinburgh economic zone, which also affects other authorities. However, as we identified earlier, that approach might not necessarily meet the needs of people in the southern part of the Borders.
Who would decide whether to split the Borders in developing the Edinburgh plan area? Would that decision be made solely by the Scottish Borders Council, saying that it is appropriate for only the northern part of its area to be included in the Edinburgh city region, or would the decision not be wholly within that council's control?
I will repeat it: formally, the decision is the minister's. However, the recommendation is made by the planning authority to the minister, and it has to be a consensus position. Scottish Borders Council supports the orders, although I understand that there are other opinions in the Borders. If the council has a view of which fence post marks the border between the parts of the Borders that are in and out of the Edinburgh region, it would hardly be sensible for the minister to second-guess the local decision making. The thrust of the Government's approach to and its relationship with local authorities is to respect their rights to take decisions at the most local level.
Equally, there will be huge value to Scottish Borders Council in sitting inside the tent, ensuring that its two members—the same number as the City of Edinburgh Council will have—represent its interests at the top table. If a consensus does not ultimately exist, a council can submit its plans separately.
It would be better for any council to be involved, engaged and inside the tent, even if representing only a proportion of its area, which is not for me to second-guess—
But it is ultimately for you to decide.
Correct. Somebody has to decide.
I understand that.
I will be accountable for the decisions that I make, and my approach will be to seek reasons to agree rather than disagree with the authorities. I expect to be in that position because the point of the process is collaboration and co-operation among councils on their mutual interests. If we do not achieve that, a range of other issues will emerge.
We are talking about strategic planning with particular reference to the Borders, which is—self-evidently—on the border between Scotland and England. To what extent does the Scottish Government encourage or promote collaboration between Scottish Borders Council—Dumfries and Galloway Council is obviously in the same position—and the neighbouring authorities in Northumbria and Cumbria? Berwick-upon-Tweed and Carlisle are important economic centres for many people who live in the Scottish Borders. To what extent is such collaboration covered in strategic overviews?
It is not covered in a legal and formal sense. It is clear that we cannot extend the boundary of our strategic authority to include Newcastle, for example, or Wooler, which is just over the border, but Scottish Borders Council can co-operate across the border—indeed, I strongly encourage it to do so. The Government has discussions on a range of issues with economic development people in the Newcastle and Carlisle areas, and bodies on both sides of the border are willing to co-operate in practice. They recognise that the border is an administrative border—it is not a physical Berlin wall that stops co-operation, and it must never become that.
Finally, one would like to see east-west collaboration between Scottish Borders Council and Dumfries and Galloway Council on planning and development proposals in several areas—tourism and certain aspects of transport in particular—because they cover neighbouring areas. Can you confirm that, from the Government's standpoint, the inclusion of the Borders in the strategic planning zone that it is in does not preclude the development of planning relationships between Scottish Borders Council—I am referring in particular to the southern Borders—and Dumfries and Galloway Council?
I absolutely confirm that.
I have a couple of general questions, minister.
From my discussions over the past couple of weeks with people who are interested in planning—councillors, planners and so on—and from reading the Scottish Government's latest newsletter, I believe that there are issues, which have been reflected this morning and which I think have been recognised, to do with central belt domination of the process. People in the Borders have raised issues with me that I do not necessarily know enough about or accept, but people are concerned that they could become involved in something that is not necessarily in their best interests and that the Borders will be used to solve Edinburgh's housing problems, which would not necessarily be in their interests. We are at the implementation stage, and the capacity continually to develop and update the plans through having enough resources and planners in the system has been raised with me. What are you doing to reassure people—as you have attempted to do this morning—that they will be given the opportunity to become involved in the process? How can people be reassured that they will have a real chance of influencing the wider planning process? What consideration is being given to workforce planning issues to bring about the changes that we would want?
Your questions are helpful, as they neatly encapsulate several issues that I have been made aware of.
I come from a rural area some distance from Edinburgh and know that central belt domination is an issue for people in rural areas. On Scottish Borders Council in particular, I have said that if it thinks that it needs to put forward separately something different to a minister, that option is available. Moreover, the council will play a key part in coming to a conclusion about which parts of the Borders should properly be part of the authority. I hope that that reassures the committee.
By having representatives sitting at the top table, those in the Scottish Borders Council area will have a greater chance of being better represented in the decision-making process than would be the case if the council sat outside the authority submitting consultation responses like any other consultee. I hope that the council sees the advantages of having two members at the top table in the same way that Edinburgh and the other councils have and accepts my reassurances that if it feels that its interests are not represented by what is otherwise the consensus view, it will have its own opportunity to put something into the system. I hope that people will read those remarks and take some sense from them.
In response to your concern that the Borders will be used to solve Edinburgh's housing problems, I have to say that that could happen regardless of this activity. The Borders is a very attractive area, which is perhaps underperforming economically and probably has lower average wage levels than any mainland area outside the islands. Because of its adjacency to Edinburgh, in particular, it presents opportunities that are already being exploited by the substantial number of people who live in the Borders and commute to the city. By improving transport links—in particular, the Waverley line—and creating opportunities for businesses to relocate to the rural setting of the Borders, we will be able to get professional people not only working in small businesses in the area but, through good communication links, moving there to live. It is clear that a number of things that are happening in the Borders are important to strategic planning and are creating opportunities for the area.
I recognise that not everyone who lives in the Borders wants the area to change according to what I think is the majority view, as expressed by Scottish Borders Council. However, that tension should continue to be managed by the council. It will be able to seek ministerial help on that matter if it thinks that that would be useful but, at the end of the day, the structure and the future of the Borders are predominantly in the council's own hands, and the signs are clear that it is engaging effectively in that work.
As for your other question, the issue of capacity, especially with regard to planners, is absolutely crucial for the whole planning system in Scotland, although I acknowledge that the issue is likely to affect the Borders in particular. The system itself has to deal with the fact that planning departments across Scotland have huge numbers of vacancies. The Government is already engaging with the Royal Town Planning Institute and is beginning to engage with the schools that train planners to find a long-term solution to the problem. The genuine difficulty is that there are not many unemployed planners out there waiting to fill these local authority vacancies; many of them have moved to the private sector because they can earn more money and because they have more scope to innovate.
One of the long-term benefits of the changed relationship between central Government and local government is that, because central Government will not be able to dictate things or attempt to micromanage as much in local government, there will be more scope for innovation in local authorities. I think that, some years from now, we will see reinvigorated local government, with people at official level able to make bigger and better contributions. I am not trying to open up a broad front of political argument on this issue; I am simply highlighting one of the consequences of the approach that we are taking.
Will this move create an extra burden on planners in the Borders that will diminish their ability to do the job on the ground? I do not think so, because it is about joining resources in the different authorities and jointly developing strategic plans that would otherwise be developed individually by planning departments in each of the councils. I cannot absolutely say that that will be the outcome, but it can certainly be delivered with good will and as part of an effective approach by all involved.
I hope that if councils feel differently about that, they will ensure that I know about it so that I can take the opportunity to assist, if I can.
As well as working with the various institutes, colleges and universities to address the workforce planning issue, how many planners do you believe we can recruit and retain over time? You will be aware that the system contains a number of planners of a certain age who have seen new planning legislation in the past, and who might take the cynical view, "Here we go again. We've heard it all before." However, those planners are really crucial to making the changes that we all wish to see in the planning system. I recently heard some evidence on that—I think it might have been from the chief planner, who brought in some surveys of the attitudes of planners in local government. There is an issue there to be addressed and I would like to hear what you have to say about it.
Also, are there any plans to acknowledge that planners in the private sector could play a part in providing capacity in the short term, and, indeed, the long term?
Cynicism is standard when change happens, whether in the private or public sector. When changes are made, it is important that local authorities, like private businesses, ensure that an identifiable person is there to facilitate the changes that are being made.
There is a real energy in local government planning. The Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Sustainable Growth and I recently met planners, chief officials and politicians who are involved in the planning process and they showed broad support for the Planning etc (Scotland) Act 2006 that the previous Administration put through, with cross-party support. We are speaking about changes on which there has been broad consensus. The planning authorities were debated vigorously in the previous session. Donald Gorrie, David McLetchie and some other members had issues with them but, at the end of the day, the Parliament broadly agreed to pass the Planning etc (Scotland) Bill.
You also asked me about planners in the private sector. The private sector needs to raise its game in relation to planning applications. When we examine complaints that a council is not making decisions as quickly as it should, or that a non-departmental public body is not making its contribution to the decision-making process, we discover that the applicant has not done all the necessary work within the necessary timescale. In working with the private sector, we want to be sure that it raises its game, that the quality of applications is better and that fewer applications do not give enough information at the outset to enable the planners to help the applicant to move the project forward.
Local authority planning has issues, but there are also issues for planners and developers in the private sector, and we are working to improve that situation.
As there are no other questions, I propose to close this session. I thank the minister and Stephen Hall for their attendance and for answering the committee's questions. Thank you, minister.
Do members agree that the committee has nothing to report to Parliament on the instruments?
Members indicated agreement.
Thank you. We will pause to allow the witnesses to change before moving on to agenda item 3.