Planning and Environmental Appeals Division: annual review 2024 to 2025

Business Improvement Initiatives

What we have achieved

We continued to look at ways of improving the service we deliver in partnership with our stakeholder group and other users of our services.

We continued to embed business improvement policies designed to broaden and deepen the skills of all reporters and caseworkers. Given the focus on climate change targets, Net Zero and the anticipated increase in related casework we focussed on reporting timescales for Electricity Act cases. In this regard there have been significant improvements in the average timescales taken to report to Ministers. DPEA has committed through the Onshore Wind Sector deal to report within 52 weeks in cases where an inquiry is necessary.

We continued to liaise with our equivalent organisations in England, Wales, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland to share and implement best practice in delivering our services.

We continued to take steps to improve our efficiency in meeting targets for making decisions on appeals and other cases, introducing a monthly RAG Report where the progress of live cases is proactively monitored.

We continued to investigate the technical and other requirements of expanding our offer of hybrid in-person/ virtual hearings and inquiries, promoting efficiency, accessibility and best use of DPEA and others resources.

We have continued our programme of meetings with planning authorities to share and implement best practice on appeals and other casework. This has included continuing our work with the Improvement Service to develop and deliver training to planning authorities.

We have continued our programme of early engagement with planning authorities to better facilitate the submission of Evidence Reports for consideration.

We have further developed our IT systems both in terms of service improvements but also preparing for a move to the Cloud in 2025.

We have worked with colleagues to prepare systems for the introduction of planning appeal fees.

Planned initiatives for the coming year

We will continue to look at ways of improving the service we deliver in partnership with our stakeholder group and other users of our services. This work will focus on proportionality and efficiency of reporting and in document management in hearing and inquiry cases.

We will continue to broaden and deepen the skills of all reporters and caseworkers. Our focus in the coming year will be on electricity generation and transmission casework.

We will continue to liaise with our stakeholders and our equivalent organisations in England, Wales, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland to share and implement best practice in delivering our services.

We will continue to proactively manage our performance against targets.

We will continue to investigate the technical and other requirements of expanding our offer of hybrid in-person/ virtual hearings and inquiries, promoting efficiency, accessibility and best use of DPEA and other resources.

We will continue our programme of meetings with councils to share and implement best practice on appeals and other casework.

We will continue our programme of active early engagement with planning authorities to better facilitate the submission of Evidence Reports for consideration.

We will look to further develop our IT systems, utilising appeal fee income.

Customer Feedback

We welcome feedback on any aspect of the service that we provide as well as suggestions as to how we can further improve. Please send any comments to DPEA@gov.scot.