Chamber and committees

Would anyone else like to come in on whether the six principles are having an impact?

Thank you for highlighting the challenge of how, from your perspective, NPF4 focuses on larger projects and does not really meet the needs of smaller projects.

You mentioned the stretched capacity of planners and that, currently, people are not coming through with the necessary training and understanding on climate and biodiversity. I imagine that you speak with other planning authorities that are working on smaller-scale projects more consistently. Have you identified any short or medium-term solutions that we could look at that could help with the capacity issue and provide support for taking a proportionate approach?

The point about regional hubs certainly came up at some point when we were doing work on NPF4 last year.

Thank you. We previously agreed to take the next three items in private. As that was the last public item on our agenda, I close the public part of the meeting.

I am sure that the chief planner and her team are very busy on that work.

Pam, do you want to come in with your other question?

The next agenda item is to further consider a negative Scottish statutory instrument. There is no requirement for the committee to make any recommendation on a negative instrument, but I am interested to hear any comments on the amendment order. Do members have any comments?

Members: No.

It is great to hear that the training is happening. Is that sufficiently resourced to keep it going? From what Morag Ferguson said, it seems that we need that to continue.

You mentioned peatlands guidance, specifically. Is there other specific guidance that has not yet been brought forward? I know that the Government has produced quite a lot of guidance.

The next item is to take evidence on the committee’s annual review of national planning framework 4 from two panels of witnesses. On our first panel, we are joined in the room by Ian Aikman, who is the chair of Heads of Planning Scotland, and David Givan, who is the chief planning officer at the City of Edinburgh Council. We are joined online by Morag Ferguson and Mairi Maciver, who are both planning managers at the Comhairle nan Eilean Siar. I welcome all the witnesses to our meeting. I love the backdrops of the witnesses who are online. Thank you for that—they are really lovely.

I remind members and those who are participating in the session that there are active legal proceedings concerning the interpretation of NPF4 policies and the interaction between those policies and existing local plans. Under the Parliament’s standing orders,

“A member may not in the proceedings of the Parliament refer to any matter in relation to which legal proceedings are active except to the extent permitted by the Presiding Officer.”

Although we do not wish the discussion and debate to be unduly restricted, I ask members and witnesses to avoid referencing specific matters that are currently before the courts.

We turn to questions. We will try to direct our questions to a specific witness where possible, but if you would like to come in please indicate that to the clerks. I ask Morag Ferguson and Mairi Maciver to indicate that they want to come in by typing R in the chat function. There is no need for you to turn your microphones on and off because our broadcast team will do that. Morag and Mairi should note that there might be a slight delay before their mic is turned on. Do not worry about that; we are aware of the pause.

I will begin with a couple of questions. I will direct the first question to Ian Aikman. The committee keeps on hearing calls for the Scottish Government to establish a hierarchy of NPF4 policy priorities. The idea of doing so would be to assist decision makers and developers. Do you think that that would be a good approach? If you do, why? If you do not, why not?

Great. There is some work to be done in that regard.

Pam Gosal needs to leave before the end of the meeting, so I will bring her in to ask a couple of questions.