Specific recommendations in LUC (Land Use Consultants Ltd) 2016 report: EIR release

Information requested

How the Scottish Government has taken forward each of the 19 specific recommendations in the LUC (Land Use Consultants Ltd) 2016 report ‘Planning Enforcement in Scotland: research into the use of existing powers, barriers and scope for improvement’.

Response

As the information you have requested is 'environmental information' for the purposes of the Environmental Information (Scotland) Regulations 2004 (EIRs), we are required to deal with your request under those Regulations. We are applying the exemption at section 39(2) of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 (FOISA), so that we do not also have to deal with your request under FOISA.

This exemption is subject to the 'public interest test'. Therefore, taking account of all the circumstances of this case, we have considered if the public interest in disclosing the information outweighs the public interest in applying the exemption. We have found that, on balance, the public interest lies in favour of upholding the exemption, because there is no public interest in dealing with the same request under two different regimes. This is essentially a technical point and has no material effect on the outcome of your request.

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance the Scottish Government does not have some of the information you have requested. Therefore we are refusing your request under the exception at regulation 10(4)(a) of the EIRs. Under the terms of the exception at regulation 10(4)(a) of the EIRs (information not held), the Scottish Government is not required to provide information which it does not have.

This exception is subject to the ‘public interest test’. Therefore, taking account of all the circumstances of this case, we have considered if the public interest in disclosing the information outweighs the public interest in applying the exception. We have found that, on balance, the public interest lies in favour of upholding the exception. While we recognise that there may be some public interest in information about the progress made against recommendations made in the 2016 LUC Report, clearly we cannot provide information which we do not hold. 

Since the recommendations in the 2016 LUC report were published, the Scottish Government has:

• Made provision for charging orders in the Planning (Scotland) Act 2019, following a consultation carried out in 2017.
• Increased the fees payable for applications for the approval of matters specified in conditions, which are set out in The Town and Country Planning (Fees for Applications) (Scotland) Regulations 2022. The fees were most recently increased by The Town and Country Planning (Fees for Applications) (Scotland) Amendment Regulations 2025 which came into effect in June 2025.
• Introduced powers for planning authorities to charge a fee to consider requests for written confirmation or compliance with conditions. The fees also increased in June 2025.
• Empowered planning authorities to impose a surcharge for retrospective applications. 
• Provided a grant to Heads of Planning Scotland (HoPS) for several workstreams including the production of a standard working template for common planning conditions.
• Provided grant funding to Planning Aid Scotland (PAS) to maintain the free planning advisory service to members of the public, business start-ups and community groups, actively contributing to the delivery of improving the quality of public services. PAS has published a guide to enforcement which was refreshed in April 2023

The Planning Performance Framework has been replaced by the National Planning Improvement Framework (NPIF). The NPIF has been developed by the National Planning Improvement Champion in collaboration with stakeholders from a range of perspectives and interests in planning covering different sectors. The NPIF aims to support a planning authority to assess their performance, identify areas of improvement and ascertain how best to action these to maximise their effectiveness and efficiency. The renewed focus on improvement and the robustness of the new NPIF process aims to provide the range of organisations with a stake in planning with confidence that the planning authority is fully committed to, and ambitious in, continuing to improve their performance.

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