Chamber and committees

Section 75 of the Town and Country Planning (Scotland) Act 1997 (as amended) is a mechanism to allow local authorities to restrict or regulate development or the use of land. Section 75 agreements, otherwise known as planning obligations can be entered into by planning authorities and persons with an interest in the land.

Planning obligations have a limited but useful role to play in the planning process where they can be used to overcome obstacles to the grant of planning permission, (which could include lack of school capacity), where the tests set out in Circular 3/2012: Planning Obligations and Good Neighbour Agreements are satisfied.

Under the Education (Scotland) Act 1980, responsibility for the provision, management and maintenance of the school estate rests with the education authorities. The Scottish Futures Trust is not responsible for the provision of or delivery of schools. The responsibility for the management of independent schools including any capital projects is a matter for individual proprietors.

Infrastructure investment is central to the Scottish Government’s economic strategy and our vision for a prosperous, fair and well-connected Scotland. The Infrastructure Investment Plan 2015, published 16 December 2015, builds on the achievements delivered through our previous infrastructure plans and sets out a refreshed programme of long-term investment.

As set out in the Infrastructure Investment Plan 2015, the Scottish Government is fully committed to supporting and facilitating the delivery of infrastructure.

We are working with local authorities to finalise this information. Up to £50 million is available in 2016-17 for the Housing Infrastructure Fund for both loans and grant and we are working closely with local authorities as part of the Strategic Housing Investment Plan (SHIP) process to identify strategically important projects that could be supported by the fund in 2016. We have also invited local authorities, as part of their SHIP submissions, to identify projects they would wish to prioritise for consideration for funding over the five year period.

(a) None.

(b) I refer the member to the answer to his previous question S5W-01600 on 16 August 2016. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at:

http://www.parliament.scot/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx.

Data on planning authority staffing have only been collected since 31 March 2013 as part of Planning Performance Frameworks. The information collected is staffing at all levels across planning authorities including planning staff, planning technicians and administrators. Not all authorities have provided information.

We have no plans to require public bodies, or local authorities, to produce registers of brownfield land. A register of each urban vacant and derelict site surveyed by local authorities in the 2015 Scottish Vacant and Derelict Land Survey is available on the Scottish Government website at

http://www.gov.scot/Topics/Statistics/Browse/Planning/SVDLSSiteRegister.

The Land Registration etc. (Scotland) Act 2012 prescribes the information that the Keeper is required and empowered to include in the map-based Land Register of Scotland. We have no plans to prescribe the inclusion of information about brownfield land.

We continue to support development on brownfield sites though our £7.835m Vacant and Derelict Land Fund provided to local authorities through the Local Government settlement.

The Scottish Government offers “unconscious bias” training for all its staff. This is part of comprehensive range of measures implemented to help us provide a fair and inclusive workplace and complement our fair and open approach to resourcing.

The Scottish Government has committed to consider measures to tackle poverty across all ethnicities, reflecting our approach to social justice and our response to the report from the Independent Adviser on Poverty and Inequality. In the Race Equality Framework, we committed to filling evidence gaps on how and to what extent people from minority ethnic groups are accessing the benefits they are entitled to and to ensuring that all relevant policy and programme areas – such as benefits take-up policy and access to advice services (including financial advice) - are fully impact-assessed for equality, as is our legal duty.Our starting point is that services must be accessible and work for all. However, in some instances, there may be a need for targeted action that focuses specifically on minority ethnic communities. For example, we are aware that people from minority ethnic groups may be under-represented as applicants of the Scottish Welfare Fund: we are therefore looking to work with relevant organisations and to target publicity for these communities, so as to improve their access to the fund across Scotland. We will continue to look for opportunities to support people from minority ethnic groups, particularly those on low incomes, in all our work going forward.

Scottish Planning Policy (2014) sets out the Scottish Government's policy on enabling the delivery of new homes. It sets out that local authorities, through their development plans, should address the supply of land for all housing, maintaining at least a five-year supply of effective housing land at all times. Planning authorities should prepare an annual housing land audit as a tool to review and monitor the availability of effective housing land, the progress of sites through the planning process, and housing completions. This information is not collated centrally.