Planning and Environmental Appeals Division: annual review 2024 to 2025

Ministerial Foreword

I welcome this annual report by the Planning and Environmental Appeals Division. It’s been a busy year for DPEA, and for the Scottish planning sector as a whole, where the focus has been on improving efficiency and increasing capacity to ensure that planning delivers and helps to stimulate investment.

One particular area where action was, and is, urgently needed was housing delivery. I published the Planning and the Housing Emergency: Delivery Plan in November in response to the pressures being faced by authorities and developers. The Plan contained a number of actions including the creation of a Housing Hub, driving forward work on stalled sites and proportionality of assessments.

The National Planning Hub is pivotal to providing the enabling conditions that help planning authorities make quicker decisions on hydrogen and onshore wind applications and in support of wider developments for good quality homes as part of the response to the housing emergency. Through the Hub, we will provide direct support to Local Authorities to enable them to improve decision-making timescales; handle major investments or new technologies; avoid delays to the adoption of new local development plans or provide specialist expertise to inform planning decisions.

I know that the first round of 'new style' local development plans are currently being prepared around the country, and we have stressed the importance that every authority in Scotland have a new style plan adopted in the next three years – by May 2028. These new plans will support the delivery of National Planning Framework 4 and wider outcomes for places. DPEA has a key role in ensuring they do, through their role at both the Gate Check and Examination stages.

These new ways of working do of course require to be resourced. To reflect that we increased planning fees and introduced a fee for appeals and local reviews. Effective resourcing also requires capacity and I am really pleased that our Future Planners Programme has developed into something we can truly be proud of. This scheme will see the Scottish Government create 18 new planners, who along with studying part-time will also get hands on experience across a number of areas of government where planning is a key element, including in DPEA itself. We look forward to welcoming them to the Scottish Government during the summer.

DPEA play a crucial role in planning in Scotland, providing those checks and balances on decision-making and in their professional advice to Ministers. I look forward to working with them as we move forward on delivery of Scottish Government priorities.

Ivan McKee

Minister for Public Finance