Scottish Crown Estate draft strategic management plan: consultation analysis

Section 6

Reporting, Monitoring and Review

Context

The final Plan will be laid before the Scottish Parliament, and there is a requirement for it to be reviewed within five years.

The Scottish Government will monitor implementation of the Plan, the objectives, priorities and policies and alignment with wider objectives, priorities and policies. The Scottish Government will work with Crown Estate Scotland (Interim Management) and prospective managers of Scottish Crown Estate assets to ensure that appropriate monitoring is undertaken alongside wider monitoring under the National Performance Framework.

The national framework to govern management of the assets at a national and local level includes national reporting and accounting arrangements. The monitoring and review of the Plan will be informed by the delivery of targets in the Crown Estate Scotland (Interim Management) Corporate Plan and any other Management Plans should set out how the manager plans to manage the asset under their management over the next three years.

Annual Reports and Management Plans will provide an assessment of how a manager has performed against the objectives.

Monitoring is an integral part of Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA), and a proposed monitoring framework has been developed to track the significant environmental effects of implementing the Plans to address data gaps identified in the SEA.

Table 14: Question 10

Do you have any comments or additional suggestions on the arrangements for monitoring and review of the Plan?

Note: Question not answered by 10 respondents.

Around 60% of respondents provided comment on the arrangements for monitoring and review of the Plan. A couple of common themes emerged, albeit not mentioned by many respondents:

• There should be explicit reference to engagement with stakeholders and the public as part of the monitoring and evaluation requirements (and this should also be reflected in the suite of indicators developed).
• The arrangements presented in the consultation document were felt to be relatively high level, and there would need to be further development work undertaken and more detail provided on the process and a common set of outcomes and indicators to "effectively monitor and manage progress across Scotland".
• Consideration could be given to putting in place a mechanism that allows for early or interim reviews of the Plan (e.g should circumstances materially change, evidence of significant failings, change in policy).

Rather, a number of individual comments or suggestions were provided by respondents^[7], as outlined below:

• It would make sense to consider alignment of the timeframes for review of the Plan and Crown Estate Scotland (Interim Management)'s Corporate Plan.
• Attempts could be made to ensure that monitoring and reporting arrangements are not too onerous or burdensome, in particular for community groups.
• Monitoring and reporting arrangements should be underpinned by a commitment for openness and transparency.
• An enterprise or coastal management body suggested that reporting could include assessment of how Crown Estate management has contributed to the objectives presented within the National Islands Plan.
• An enterprise or coastal management body suggested that a body separate from Audit Scotland, could be created to undertake the scrutiny role.
• A local authority felt that the Plan is too directive – "It should be more facilitative so that Crown Estate Scotland, with its skilled and experienced workforce, comes alongside communities, helping them to deliver on Plan reporting".
• A comment was made that monitoring for strategic environmental assessment (SEA) purposes would be aligned with monitoring for the Value Project which is a tool being developed to better understand, measure and monitor the benefits generated from the Scottish Crown Estate. It was suggested that monitoring could also include gathering data on the location and extent of activities associated with the Plan's objectives, priorities and policies and potential environmental effects.