Improvement Service to Host National Planning Improvement Hub

It has been confirmed that the National Planning Improvement Champion in the Improvement Service is to host the new National Planning Improvement Hub.

The establishment of the hub was announced in the Programme for Government to build capacity and resilience in the planning system, and to improve consistency and efficiency in decision‑making. Its initial priority will be to help planning authorities make quicker decisions on hydrogen planning applications, with a plan to support wider developments including good quality homes and onshore wind.

The hub will assemble specialist expertise and deploy this to support planning services and will work with them to support the sharing of expertise and learning amongst authorities. It will also develop tools and resources to highlight good practice and help planning authorities to use these to improve their practice through learning through events and networking.

The hub is funded by Scottish Government, meaning there will be no direct costs to planning authorities. The National Planning Improvement Champion will host and coordinate the hub’s work and will be supported initially by staff from Scottish Government, key agencies and other partner organisations. Its work will be guided and supported by Scottish Government, COSLA, Heads of Planning Scotland, SOLACE, other members of the High Level Group on Planning Performance, and by industry.

Preparatory work on establishing the Hub has already commenced with initial scoping and recruitment in place. It will continue to full set up at pace.

You can read a series of FAQs on the Hub.

You can read a blog by National Planning Improvement Champion Craig McLaren.