Chamber and committees

<>Planning authorities have been invoiced by the Planning and Environmental Appeals Division of the Scottish Government as follows in respect of local and strategic development plan examinations in the period 1 April 2011 to the current date.

Planning Authority	Reporter Costs £	Administration Costs £	Overheads £	Final Cost (including VAT) £
Local Development plans
Aberdeen	83,200	1,280	1,888.88	103,642.66
Aberdeenshire	142,400	2,520	12,161.98	188,498.38
Fife (St Andrews and East Fife)	95,900	1,800	2,116.40	119,779.68
Fife (Dunfermline and West Fife)	110,000	2320	1926.47	137,095.76
Western Isles	11,100	160	714.45	14,369.34
Perth and Kinross	104,600	1248.40	1,154	128,402.86
Dundee	17,500	336	295	21,757.68
Orkney Islands	20,600	756	708	26,476.98
North Ayrshire	43,400	2,568	506	55,769.10
Stirling	83,980	1,008	359	102,416.16
Renfrewshire	59,200	1,425.52	0	72,750.62
South Ayrshire	57,000	1,145.60	477.90	70,348.20
Dumfries and Galloway	59,500	1,246.80	1,838.36	75,102.19
Inverclyde	29,200	432	199.10	35,797.32
Shetland Isles	21,400	345.60	1807.61	28,263.85
Cairngorms	45,700	756.68	703.63	56,592.37
South Lanarkshire	63,700	932.13	322.89	77,946.02
South Lanarkshire (Minerals)	10,800	640	2,534.66	16,769.59
Argyll and Bute	45,500	1,183.40	1,120.70	57,364.92
West Dunbartonshire	28,840	1,608	176.64	36,749.57
East Renfrewshire	62,960	2,126.40	243.75	78,396.18
Falkirk	68,800	1,048.87	524.70	84,448.28
Clackmannan	19,500	580.80	97.65	24,214.14
Clackmannan (Alteration)	8,400	400	71.21	10,645.45
Highland	87,100	2,280	2,262.53	109,971.04
Highland (Inner Moray Firth)	61,000	1,224	365.30	75,107.16
Moray	50,200	259.20	0	60,915.84
Scottish Borders (on-going)	26,040	543	0	31,899.84
Strategic Development Plan
Glasgow and Clyde Valley	11,050	400	0	13,740
TAYplan	13,050	400	173.60	16,348.32
SESplan	19,300	2,046	3147.59	29,392.31
Aberdeen City and Shire	14,300	308	701.80	18,371.76

<>The information requested for April 2015 was published by Revenue Scotland on 21 May 2015 and is available at: https://www.revenue.scot/who-we-are/publications/statistics

Revenue Scotland will publish Land and Buildings Transaction Tax monthly statistics for May 2015 in June 2015.

The Scottish Government has taken a prudent approach to the preparation of forecasts for the devolved taxes. These forecasts have been endorsed as reasonable by the independent Scottish Fiscal Commission.

The Scotland Act 2012 sets out provisions for managing the inevitable increase in forecasting risk which comes with tax devolution. In addition, I confirmed to Parliament at Stage 3 of the Budget Bill, on 4 February 2015, that I had decided to hold £15 million in 2015-16 to provide insurance against such risk.

Scottish Ministers undertook a review one year after the introduction of the development management regulations which showed that the system was bedding down well but identified some issues. Legislation was subsequently amended to alleviate some of these. We have no plans at present to commission or undertake further general research on the operation of the planning system in Scotland but we will maintain an open dialogue with stakeholders who are involved in the planning process to identify where further improvements could provide the most benefit.

The Scottish Government intends to publish them in the near future.

I will be publishing more information shortly on the business development bank.

The Scottish Government forecasts that Land and Buildings Transaction Tax will generate revenue of £381 million in 2015-16, comprising £235 million from residential transactions and £146 million from non-residential transactions. These forecasts were endorsed as reasonable by the independent Scottish Fiscal Commission. They do not include the effects of forestalling, for which the UK Government has agreed to compensate us.

Scotland’s Economic Strategy sets out an overarching framework for all Scottish Government policy and our delivery partners. It brings focus on increasing competitiveness and tackling inequality as two mutually supporting goals.

Since its publication, policy frameworks have been launched on Internationalisation and Scotland’s Business Pledge. As outlined in the strategy, Scotland's Trade and Investment Strategy, Scotland's Oil and Gas Strategy, Fair Work Strategy, and Social Justice Strategy, will also be published in due course.

Live updates are available at: http://gov.scot/economicstrategy.

The Scottish Government forecasts that the Scottish Landfill Tax will generate revenue of £117 million in 2015-16, as set out in Table 2.03 on page 16 of the Scottish Draft Budget. This forecast was endorsed as reasonable by the independent Scottish Fiscal Commission.

Responsibility for the delivery of the planning service in Scotland lies with individual planning authorities. Where a case comes before a local review body for consideration, that review must be undertaken in accordance with The Town and Country Planning (Schemes of Delegation and Local Review Bodies) (Scotland) 2013 and all decisions must be in accordance with the relevant development plan unless material considerations indicate otherwise.