Chamber and committees

I absolutely recognise that. You are right that in a small community, those numbers can be hugely important. I will hand over to Andy Kinnaird in a minute to go through some of the detail on that.

Clearly, rural revitalisation is one of the overarching principles in NPF4. We have already talked about the proportionality and flexibility in local areas having either local development plans or local community plans that recognise local factors and are able to support accordingly. That is understood within the framework, but, as it beds in, if such issues are raised, they need to be considered and addressed. I listened with interest to the witnesses that you had from Comhairle nan Eilean Siar, who talked about the applicability of NPF4 locally. Andy, do you want to go into some of the details?

First, we need to recognise that this is not just a Scottish issue; it is an issue across the whole UK. The workshop last week was interesting because it covered a wide range of different things and it was good to have different people with different perspectives coming to the table. One thing that came out of the workshop was the question, how do you get young people in school interested in planning? How do you make that an exciting career option for young people so that they grow up and say, “I want to be a planner”? We need to address that and highlight the fact that in that role, you are dealing with issues that are hugely important to individuals, to communities and to society. It is a varied career dealing with a range of different policy aspects and it will be a fulfilling career as a consequence of that.

As well as making it more attractive for people to come into the process, we also need to look at how to make provision for people with experience in adjacent sectors to move into planning mid-career; they might find that an interesting career transition later in life.

On the education side, you are right about the capacity that is there. That is an issue. Some of the education providers, including the University of Glasgow, are looking at what they can do to help put in provision to help train more planners.

Yes. Clearly, there are hugely important imperatives around the climate impact of peat. Comhairle nan Eilean Siar gave statistics about how much peat it has—it is an awful lot. That is clearly a factor, but that is where the value of the local development plans comes into play—they can take those factors into account and understand how they work in a local context.

I think that the ruling reinforced the application of the policy. I do not think that we have any plans to review it, but watching the data and getting better data to watch are hugely important parts of what we need to do across a whole range of what is in the pipeline. Andy, do you want to comment further on that?

As has been said, the MATHLR figures are based on an assessment that is increased by 25 to 30 per cent to give the final numbers, and those are then seen as a minimum for delivery. The expectation is that local authorities are delivering in excess of what is in the MATHLR figures.

That will be part of the consideration that we give it in the round, but I do not see anything else.

That is absolutely true, and that is a basic principle with regard to customer service. In the public as well as in the private sector, it is very important to tell customers what is going on. It makes people feel much more comfortable and understanding of the situation. The work that the national planning improvement champion is taking forward in the framework for evaluation of how different local authority planning departments are performing is a key part of that. That is not only with regard to what they are delivering, but how they engage with customers—that is a big part of that work.

The situation is more complicated than that because there are shortages in the private sector as well and the different sectors are looking over their shoulders at each other, because they are worried about the others stealing their people. The fact that we had everybody in the room together at the event last week highlighted the need for people to work more closely together on some of that stuff.

If planners in different parts of the process are duplicating work, there might be an opportunity to get an understanding of that across the whole system in order to streamline the process. By comparing notes, people might be able to take us to a more effective place. That is one part of the solution, but there are clearly a number of other legs to that.

Thank you very much.

I would like to mention the recognition that NPF4 has gained. It won the planning to address climate change award at the United Kingdom-level planning awards last summer, and the UK Climate Change Committee stated in its 2023 report “Progress in adapting to climate change” that NPF4 is a significant step forward in delivering adaptation. It has also won a number of other awards at UK level. We are delighted about that. It is recognised in many ways as being groundbreaking in its approach.

Clearly, as we recognise, it is early days for NPF4, but it has been very well accepted by the planning community. As we know, significant work is happening to line up local development plans with the approach in NPF4. Obviously, we will not go into the details of the recent court case, but that has helped to clarify some aspects of that. The fact that we have won that case, pending appeal, gives us confidence that NPF4 is pointing in the right direction in terms of what it needs to deliver.

On the issues that need to be focused on, the team has a thorough and impressive delivery plan that it is working through, which is rated using the red, amber and green system. That has been very effective in giving an overview of which aspects require focus. Clearly, quite a bit of work is happening on local development plans. There are a number of areas—for example, the masterplan consent areas, further work on compulsory purchase orders and work on the infrastructure levy—that are in the pipeline and are being considered.

As the planning community and, indeed, local communities become more familiar with NPF4, we expect there to be more community-level engagement, which would be very encouraging.