Development plan amendment regulations: consultation response summary

Introduction

Background

In 2017, the Scottish Government consultation 'Places, People and Planning' proposed that the review cycles of the NPF and LDPs be extended from 5 years to 10 years to achieve stronger and more flexible development plans, and that provisions for interim updates be made. An analysis of responses indicated general support for this, with agreement that should a 10 year plan life be introduced, it must include a mechanism to amend.

In response, our 'Places, People and Planning Position Statement' confirmed that we would progress with the 10-year timeframe. The Policy Memorandum accompanying the Planning (Scotland) Bill explained that, with the extended 10 year timeframe, the provision to enable amendments could help to ensure that the planning system is able to respond with an appropriate policy provision where urgent matters arise.

During Parliamentary consideration of the Bill, the following sections were added:

• section 3CC of the 1997 Act provides for 'Amendment of the National Planning Framework' (inserted by section 12(2) of the 2019 Act).
• section 20AA of the 1997 Act provides for 'Amendment of local development plan' (inserted by sections 12(3) and 14(6) of the 2019 Act).

Our "Development plan amendment regulations: consultation" related to proposals for regulations on the processes for amending the Development Plan.

The Scottish Government is required to consider the impacts of proposed policies, plans or strategic decisions in relation to equalities, various societal groups and sectors, data protection and the environment, under a range of legislation and commitments. A number of impact assessment screenings and a partial impact assessment were completed to support the proposals relating to amendments of the Development Plan. The responses to the question on impact assessments within the consultation paper will inform any changes to or preparation of the final impact assessments.

The consultation

All Scottish Government consultations are published on the Citizen Space platform, which enables respondents to access the consultation paper and respond online.

This consultation ran for 12 weeks, opening on 28 February 2024 and closing on 22 May 2024. It asked 25 questions and received a total of 50 responses. There were no duplicate or invalid responses received, and further information on the type of response and profile of the respondent is presented in the Respondent Profile section of this paper.

The consultation paper and supporting impact assessment documents are available on Citizen Space.

Content of this Report

We would like to thank all our stakeholders for responding to this consultation and providing a wealth of information to inform our next steps. We have considered the detailed comments provided.

This report is not a full analysis and does not aim to reflect every viewpoint expressed in the consultation responses. It provides a summary of common themes submitted to this consultation and some key points raised. The full responses of all those organisations and individuals who gave permission to do so have been published online at: Development plan amendment regulations: consultation - Scottish Government consultations - Citizen Space

Methodology – analysis and reporting

This consultation summary report has been undertaken in-house, led by the policy lead for the consultation. Discussions were also held with Scottish Government research analysts to inform our in-house consultation analysis approach, and for quality assurance purposes.

The Citizen Space platform reflects our aspirations for good consultation through open, high quality, standardised processes. The platform allows Scottish Government officials to access, moderate and publish responses, it also provides some analytical reports.

The analysis of the consultation followed four key stages:

Stage 1 – Organising data

Each response was numbered and given a unique identifier. The data was then checked and validated. This involved collating all the data from both Citizen Space and emailed responses into a master Microsoft Excel spreadsheet.

The data was then reviewed and 'cleaned' by identifying any potential defamatory responses, any potential campaign responses, blank forms and duplicate responses, of which there were none.

Finally, those respondents who asked to remain anonymous were identified to ensure this was respected, and responses were allocated to the respondent categories as shown in the Respondent Profile section below and used in tables throughout this report.

Stage 2 – Quantitative analysis

The quantitative analysis of the responses to each question was achieved through the exporting of responses to a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet. This enabled totals to be produced regarding many responded to each question, including respondent profile and answer.

This data was used to produce the tables presented within this report. Each quantitative question has a table which states the figures and percentages related to the responses to that question. These are calculated based on the number of responses that particular question received, not the consultation as a whole.

Stage 3 – Qualitative analysis

This was done via an initial read of all comments made in response to the qualitative questions by two members of the Scottish Governments Planning, Architecture and Regeneration Division (PARD), including the policy lead responsible for this workstream.

Following this, a session was held between those colleagues to identify and agree the key emerging themes, trends and the most appropriate coding to use for the analysis.

Subsequently, the agreed coding was imbedded into the master Microsoft Excel spreadsheet containing the data, and both colleagues worked through the responses to code each answer. This work was quality assurance checked by the policy lead, before the coding and themes identified were used to write this summary report.

Stage 4 – Reporting

As is usual for a Scottish Government consultation, a question by question summary of analysis report was chosen for reporting the outcomes.

This provides clarity and displays all closed questions by a numeric (baseline) and percentage analysis, while providing a further break down by respondent profile.

As responses contained a large volume of evidence and views, the report seeks to consider all points raised and these have been used to inform the final regulations.

This report sets out key themes and issues raised; however, it does not seek to repeat every individual point. Where consent has been given to publish the response, it may be found on Citizen Space.

The following terms have been used to consistently indicate the frequency with which a theme or point was raised:

• 'a few' – meaning two or three responses;
• 'some' – meaning less than half the responses, but more than a few;
• 'several' – meaning around half of responses;
• 'most' – meaning a comfortable majority of responses i.e. two thirds, or three quarters; and
• 'almost all' – meaning an overwhelming majority of responses.

Additionally, the following terms have been used throughout to demonstrate a combination of answers:

• 'support' or 'supportive' – meaning they responded either 'strongly agree' or 'agree'; and
• 'unsupportive' or 'opposed' – meaning they responded either 'disagree' or 'strongly disagree'.

This report presents a question-by-question summary of answers to the closed questions and further comments at open questions.

It should be noted that not every respondent answered every question, resulting in some questions having more responses that others. Therefore, when analysing the responses, figures and percentages are calculated based on the number of responses that particular question received, not the total number of respondents to the consultation as a whole.

As with any public consultation exercise, it is important to understand that the sample of responses to the consultation cannot ever be considered to be representative of the wider population. The responses to the consultation are a self-selecting sample, as people or organisations who have a keen interest in the regulations, who hold strong views, and who have the capacity to respond are much more likely to take part.

Respondent Profile

Respondents were asked to identify whether they were responding as an individual or on behalf of a group or organisation. Six responses were from individual members of the public and 44 responses were from groups or organisations.

Respondents were allocated to one of six groups by the analysis team. A breakdown of the number of responses received by respondent type is set out below, and a full list of respondents by group is provided at Annex 1.