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We consulted on the principle of fees for planning appeals and have taken on board the consultation responses. As I have said, there will of course be people who would be happy not to pay any fees for appeals—they would be delighted not to have to pay any planning fees at all—but that is not the world that we live in. We recognise that it is important to be able to resource the planning system. We recognise that there is a gap, as a result of only about two thirds of the cost of the planning system being covered by fees.

We have taken a number of measures, including the one that we are discussing and others to do with index linking and so on, to ensure that a higher proportion of the cost of the planning system is covered by fees than is the case at the moment. We think that tackling the resourcing issue that planning faces is an important step—of course, there are many others that need to be taken—in ensuring that the planning system is able to support development and tackle the housing emergency.

We monitor the data on the number of appeals, the level of fees and the amount of resources that come into the system on a regular basis, and we will continue to do so. If we found that there were issues, we would look at them.

Across the whole planning system, we recover only about two thirds of the fees from applicants. That is a long-standing issue that we are seeking to address by linking fees with inflation. My officials can speak to the specifics of the consultation.

We consulted on the basis of there being planning fees; clearly, there are people who would not want us to introduce planning fees for appeals, because they would have to pay them. However, we did consult on that basis, we gathered views and we took them into account, and the Government has made proposals that we think are the right ones, given all the factors that have been identified. If somebody is saying that we should not raise the money through that route, they will need to be clear about where else we can raise the money from to cover that fiscal gap. It would have to happen either through councils having to take resource from other budgets or through an increase in planning fees more generally.

It is the same with any process. The appellant would take a view on whether they wanted to proceed with the appeal, as they do when they make an application at the beginning of the process, because there are costs associated with that, too. If you are saying that we should not charge any planning fees at all, which is a logical extension of what you are saying, you would find resistance to that. If you are saying that we should not charge any fees at all, because it would encourage more people to bring forward housing development proposals, the problem would be that we would not have a well-resourced planning system. Everyone recognises that underresourcing is a particular challenge that we need to address.

It is important that we separate the cost of running the planning system from the cost of the appeals process, which requires to be funded separately from the taking of decisions as part of the planning process. As I have said, in the planning process, decisions will be based on the information that is in front of the planning authority at various stages of the process. It is important that the process runs on that basis, and that is separate from the issue of the fees that are charged, which, as I said earlier, are to cover the cost of running the process.

That there should be no ring fencing is an important principle. If we were to say, “We’re gonnae tell local authorities how they should spend their money”, I think that the committee would have something to say about that. That is an important point to recognise.

However, we have made it clear that we expect local authorities to use the money that they receive through the planning system—whether from fees for applications or fees for appeals—to resource the planning system. At the moment, councils are having to put extra money into the planning system in order to be able to process the applications and appeals that are in front of them.

The important principle that there should be no ring fencing, which we agreed through the Verity house agreement, is in place, but, as I have said, I would encourage local authorities to utilise the resource that is generated to support the planning system.

It is the same process. The fees that come to the Scottish Government for those appeals are calculated as being sufficient to cover the costs of processing the appeals through the system that the Government has in place.

I do not know the specific local cases that you are referring to, but in general, with regard to resourcing, we have taken significant steps. We have trebled the number of bursaries for planners coming through the system, which the Government is paying for, to help address the resourcing challenge. We have also hired a significant number of apprentice planners into the Government, which, again, the Government is paying for, to support the training of more young—and not-so-young—people who are coming into the system.

I have carried out a significant number of events with young planners to support and encourage them, and to look at routes for others who are mid-career and are seeking to come into the planning system. We have done quite a bit of work on the resourcing piece and on skills.

On best practice, the work that Craig McLaren, the national planning improvement champion, has taken forward is significant. It has involved peer-to-peer reviews across all 34 planning authorities, and the work that has come out of that has helped him objectively identify what best practice looks like and how planning authorities can learn from one another to improve the service that they offer to applicants.

You are absolutely right that having an informed conversation early in the process is better for everybody. It helps applications be of a higher standard, and it allows the applicant to understand what the planning authority is looking for when making its determination.

Yes to all of that. We are approaching the estate strategy on two levels. Longer-term work is going on in the cities—Glasgow and Edinburgh in particular—to determine what longer-term solutions might be. Basically, the golden rule is that you do not renew a lease without having a serious conversation about whether you need to renew it and where else the public bodies concerned could go. Regularly, we decide not to renew a lease, which enables public bodies to co-locate, more effectively, elsewhere.

That is just an on-going process. It has the advantage of not just saving lease costs but making it easier for organisations to co-locate services in the back office, and—this is probably the biggest win, to be honest—easier for them to talk to each other more and have a closer working relationship, which allows them to integrate more effectively the services that are delivered to the public, understand what they are all working on, and improve co-operation and integration. That is absolutely a key part of what we are doing.

We are always looking for good examples of that. That could be what you are talking about: SPCB bodies co-locating with other public bodies that have space, as many do, in their buildings.

We are also working increasingly closely with local government and health boards in that. There are examples of health boards now sharing premises with local authorities and so on. We encourage that work and create the space to enable it to happen, because, as I said, it leads to a plethora of benefits beyond cost savings.