Relevant learning opportunities for professional planners, support staff and elected members involved in planning can come in a variety of forms, some more obvious than others. Examples of learning opportunities include:

• Formal training courses delivered in-house for an organisation or externally
• Informal internal seminars and discussions
• On-the-job training
• Conferences and seminars
• Design awareness training
• Structured reading
• Networking
• Working with a mentor
• Sharing good practice
• Action Learning Sets
• University/ college courses
• Distance or e-learning materials
• Secondment/ work shadowing
• Volunteering, for example with Planning Aid for Scotland

The main focus of the Planning Development Programme is the development and delivery of training events that target priority skills and knowledge development needs within planning authorities, working in partnership with authorities, stakeholders and training providers. The workshops and learning opportunities that will be supported through the Programme from April 2008 will relate to one of 4 themes - sustainability, design awareness, development economics & developer contributions, and specialist topics.

The Programme aims to be demand-led, reacting to common training needs identified by authorities for which appropriate solutions do not already exist. The training is sourced in a variety of ways including through a full European tendering exercise (for example the module-based design awareness training or sustainability training), requesting bespoke events from existing training providers, for example TRA, or reacting to proposals from interest groups (for example the built heritage conservation course run by the Scottish Traditional Skills Training Centre).

A full list of the workshops currently available through the Programme is available to download. All workshops available through the Programme can be delivered in house for authorities on request. Some workshops are also run on an open basis for participants from any of the 34 authorities. These open events are run on an ad-hoc basis therefore a forward programme is not available. Information about events arranged through the Planning Development Programme is circulated by email to the 34 authorities through the managers of the planning services.

Trainers who have been commissioned to provide workshops are issued with an information pack, which is also available to download.

A new series of events aiming to encourage sharing of good practice between planning authorities has been introduced in the Sharing good practice section.

The Programme is not involved in providing briefing or information on new legislation, procedures or policy linked to the Planning etc (Scotland) Act 2006 or modernisation agenda. It is also not involved in delivering training linked to e-planning because this is the responsibility of the system suppliers as part of the implementation of the supply contract.

If you would like further information about events or would like to discuss your ideas for future events, please contact This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Related information

Background
Programme Information
Managing Learning & Development
Funding
Sharing Good Practice
Elected Members
Other Projects
Further Information