Craig McLaren, Scotland's new National Planning Improvement Champion, sets out how he intends to work with planning authorities and others to create a high performance planning system.
Times are undoubtedly hard for the public sector, and local government in particular, with financial pressures forcing councils to make increasingly difficult choices about spending priorities. But the resourcing challenges are also stimulating new thinking on how the public sector works and how to enhance its effectiveness and efficiency in a new context. This is certainly the case for spatial planning.
Provisions introduced in the Planning (Scotland) Act 2019 formalised how to measure planning authorities’ performance and support planning services to improve. Planning authorities will now be obliged to “prepare a report on the performance of their functions” which is submitted to Ministers and published. This builds upon previous work by Heads of Planning Scotland (HOPS) whereby planning authorities voluntarily published a Planning Performance Framework each year, which included a number of key markers that Scottish Government graded.
Allied to this, the Act also called for the introduction of a National Planning Improvement Champion to monitor the performance of planning authorities and provide advice to them (and others considered appropriate) in relation to what steps might be taken to improve. I took up this role in September, based within the Improvement Service, the ’go to’ organisation for local government improvement in Scotland. The Champion approach is a creative and relatively new way of working that will work with those involved in planning to create a high-performing planning system. Good performance will be assessed in terms of positive outcomes, such as:
- the planning system enables the delivery of sustainable, liveable and productive places
- planning services work effectively and efficiently, embedding continuous improvement
- users are able to engage constructively with the planning system and planning service.
In taking it forward I am currently exploring how best to:
- establish a robust performance management model, and self-assessment and reporting process for planning authorities
- frame and define good performance within outcomes and the ambitions of the National Planning Framework, Place and Wellbeing Outcomes and Planning Acts
- support planning authorities to identify areas for improvement and work with them to address these
- identify strategic challenges facing the planning system and work with stakeholders to address them
- work with others to develop approaches to identify, share and support people and organisations to implement good practice
I want to engage collaboratively with stakeholders in the conceptualisation, development and implementation of this work. Key to this will be planning authorities but it also needs to involve others with a stake in the planning system including government and its agencies, applicants, developers and communities.
As Champion, I’ll be playing a supportive and critical friend role, working with planning authorities to assess performance and providing them with constructive advice on how best to address areas identified for improvement. I will also provide leadership and play a brokerage role in gathering evidence and bringing people together to develop approaches to performance and good practice, embedding learning to stimulate reform that facilitates a high-performing planning system across Scotland.
In my first six months in the role, I’ll be engaging with stakeholders to hear their views on what I am aiming to achieve and how. As part of this, it will be important to discuss how to define and measure performance. I also aim to learn from others working on performance management, improvement and good practice in other countries and support organisations in Scotland covering other disciplines.
It is hoped that this new approach, as part of broader public service reform, will ultimately lead to great planning that delivers great places for people.
Craig McLaren is the National Planning Improvement Champion in the Improvement Service and can be contacted on craig.mclaren@improvementservice.org.uk or on X (formerly Twitter) at @CraigMMcLaren