The National Planning Hub is based in and led by Scottish Government, working in partnership with the Improvement Service. It builds on the earlier Hydrogen and Housing Hubs and is tasked to provide direct support to planning authorities to accelerate decision making and development delivery.
It offers a flexible approach to providing additional surge capacity and expertise, brokerage support, professional capacity, and efficiency and practice.
The priorities for the National Planning Hub were outlined in the Programme for Government and informed by the sector, including the ongoing engagement activity of the Hub. For this year these are housing, renewable energy, and supporting local development plans where evidence shows there are challenges. The NPH does this through:
- Brokerage - led by the Scottish Government, involves bringing parties together to identify why individual sites have stalled, consider options and progress solutions so sites are development-ready.
- Surge capacity and expertise - led by Scottish Government to support planning authorities to access the capacity, resource and specialist expertise they require, e.g. through facilitating/supporting surge capacity and deployment of targeted specialist expertise to support planning authorities.
- Professional capacity - led by the Improvement Service to support planning authorities to be better equipped to deal with planning applications, e.g. by accessing professional skills, expertise and capacity through facilitated collaboration between planning services; being provided with targeted upskilling; and being able to access data and intelligence.
- Practice and efficiency - led by the Improvement Service to support planning authorities to be more efficient and effective, e.g. through being provided with support tools, resources and templates; attending learning events; and accessing good practice examples.
The following blog and report has been co-produced by the National Planning Hub team from the Planning and Architecture team at the Scottish Government and the National Planning Improvement Team at Improvement Service.
Blog
Report
Quite an achievement for a small and agile team of 4.5 people.
The National Planning Hub is a partnership between the Scottish Government and Improvement Service. The National Planning Hub team consists of a small and agile team with a diverse mixture of skills.
Barry Stalker (Scottish Government)
Barry is a Policy Official and is Head of the National Planning Hub
Paul Gilhooley (Scottish Government)
Paul is a Policy Official and is the Programme Manager for the National Planning Hub
Craig McLaren (Improvement Service)
Craig is the National Planning Improvement (NPI) Champion
Andy Watts (Improvement Service)
Andy is the NPI Practice and Capacity Lead
Olivia Neame (Improvement Service)
Olivia is the NPI Planning Officer
Contact the National Planning Improvement team by emailing us at NPI@improvementservice.org.uk and follow us on LinkedIn.
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National Planning Improvement
The National Planning Improvement Champion is responsible for monitoring the performance of planning authorities and providing advice to them (and others) on what steps might be taken to improve their performance.
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Planning Skills
The Planning Skills Programme co-ordinates training events for public sector planning officers, with the aim to develop the skills required to deliver better places.
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Planning for Place
The Planning for Place Programme supports councils and their partners to collaborate around place, seeking to encourage place-based approaches to joint planning, resourcing and delivery of places that enable all communities to flourish.
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Shaping Places for Wellbeing
The programme aims to improve Scotland’s wellbeing and reduce inequalities through changing our collective approaches to the places where we live, work and play.