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I highlight last week’s evidence from Scottish Renewables, which recognised the significance of our renewable energy policy in NPF4; indeed, it is at the forefront of thinking in a European context. It also recognised that protections for wild land already exist and are retained—and, in that respect, I would highlight as an example the percentage of wild land that we find in our national parks or national scenic areas.

I also point out that it is important to read NPF4 as a whole. Ultimately, decisions have to be considered on a case-by-case basis in conjunction with the development plan—including the local development plan—and the individual decision maker has to take all of those factors into consideration.

Do you want to add anything, Cara?

The answer to your first question lies in your second question. As I said in my opening remarks, we have arrived at this point through an extended period of work—there have been more than three years of work to get to this point—and the intention now is that the NPF4 draft, as revised, which is before the committee for consideration today, will be brought to Parliament for a vote. Under the legislation, a parliamentary vote is required before ministers can adopt. We will bring the revised version to Parliament for a vote, so there is no scope at this juncture for changes or amendments. To do so would be to effectively reopen the process and delay getting on with the work of implementing and delivering NPF4.

With regard to your second question, engagement, collaboration and partnership working are absolutely essential to the delivery of NPF4, so we have set out in the first iteration of our delivery programme how we will work with partners to help to achieve that. Of course, the delivery programme will be reviewed after six months, and I am grateful to those who have already offered comments about what changes they would like to see and what additions they would like to see in the delivery programme. We will engage on that, and, of course, as I referenced in my opening remarks, through our monitoring process we will be able to learn how the policies are delivering on the ground. We will begin to see how that impacts on the development of new local development plans, and it is through that process that we will then be able to evaluate the impact that NPF4 is having.

There is provision in the Planning (Scotland) Act 2019 to amend NPF4. We will introduce those regulations next year, but, clearly, any changes to NPF4 would have to be evidenced and carefully considered. The priority and the focus now is on the adoption of NPF4, subject to Parliament’s agreement, and then its implementation and delivery, which will be done in a genuine spirit of collaboration and partnership working.

First of all, I encourage all aspiring planners outwith Scotland or in other parts of the UK to come to Scotland to work in planning and help us deliver this really significant framework.

As we will all recognise, there will be no quick fix to this challenge. There are high-level things that we can do to raise the profile of planning and make it as attractive a career choice as possible. Again, I make it clear: planning has so much potential to deliver so much good, and it represents an excellent career choice for anyone.

As for the practical work that we are doing in that respect, there are, as I have already mentioned, issues with resourcing. In some planning authorities, fees have translated to additional posts, and there has been work to bring in full cost recovery. I would caveat that by making it clear that there are complexities in that respect, and we do not want any unintended consequences, but that commitment is being taken forward.

There is also the future planners project, which earlier this year published a report containing a number of thoughtful suggestions for actions that we can take to increase the number of people coming into the profession. Fiona, do you want to say anything about that?

That comes back to the pivot in our focus that I have talked about. As we move to implementing and delivering NPF4, the Government can have more active engagement in that.

The term “community wealth building” may be new to some people, but the concept underlying it is not. Certainly, the key components are all well understood strands of work, many of which have had long-standing support from the Scottish Government and local authorities. Many of the key components are well established in Scotland, whether they are around sustainable procurement, supporting local businesses or localising supply chains, the retention of local assets and seeing more local assets in community ownership, promoting fair work and progressive recruitment practices, or, indeed, promoting more progressive models of ownership, be they co-operatives, employee-owned businesses or social enterprises.

Community wealth building brings a strategic lens to those individual strands in such a way that we can effect quite significant and radical change in how our local and regional economies operate. I am heartened to see the interest to date in community wealth building from across the political spectrum and, indeed, among stakeholders. I have had very positive engagement on community wealth building with, for example, the Federation of Small Businesses, and I look forward to more constructive engagement.

This is something that has real potential. It will not be an overnight fix: there are no magic bullets here to address all the challenges that our local and regional economies face. However, community wealth building has something of a track record in other areas: it is already delivering on the ground in Ayr, and, as more and more communities throughout Scotland adopt it, we will see the benefits of it. Spatial planning can have a key role in delivering community wealth building, which is why I am delighted that we have the policy in NPF4. Although I cannot say for certain that this is the case, one contributor has suggested that it may be the first planning policy in the world to have within it a specific community wealth-building policy. That is a demonstration of the Government’s commitment to advancing the community wealth-building agenda. I hope very much to have the opportunity to discuss that in more detail with the committee in due course.

As set out in the legislation, when NPF4 is adopted, the development plan will consist of NPF4 and the local development plan, but NPF4 will take precedence over any existing LDP. Once new LDPs come online, that situation will change, as they will be a more up-to-date reflection of policy. After NPF4 is adopted, if there is a conflict between it and an existing LDP, NPF4 will prevail.

That is the key point. It is not solely public money that will deliver on NPF4—the private sector has a huge role to play. Even in the public sector, there is a mix between Scottish Government and local government funding. It is quite a complex funding landscape. We seek to present, on the public sector side, the money that is available through existing funding streams and how that aligns with the ambitions and principles of NPF4.

I will ask Carrie Thomson to come in, in a moment. We have taken an evidence-based approach, and I think that you will recognise that that is absolutely vital. The numbers that we arrived at are based on national and local data, but it is also important to recognise that the HNDA was a starting point in reaching the MATHLR figures, so there is also flexibility. It is important to remember that, as part of the new-style LDPs, there is also the opportunity for local evidence, through the evidence reports, to identify where there is additional need and demand. That flexibility is built in.

The HNDA guidance and the tool are kept under review, and they are regularly updated when updated household projections are released by National Records of Scotland. HNDA is well understood and well established, and I recognise that, at the session last week, Homes for Scotland offered to facilitate a workshop for the committee on HNDA. I am keen to maintain positive engagement with Homes for Scotland, so planning officials and those from the centre for housing market analysis will, of course, be happy to have discussions on the HNDA tool and other matters with Homes for Scotland.

Do you want to provide more detail, Carrie?

I recognise and welcome the comments from stakeholders, who have themselves welcomed the greater clarity on community wealth building in the NPF. Community wealth building is at different stages of implementation. You will be aware from your constituency, Mr Coffey, that, across Ayrshire—it started with North Ayrshire but now includes the whole region—we are seeing trailblazing work being done on community wealth building. I was delighted to be out and about in the area in the summer and to see some of the great work that has been going on there through place-based approaches to procurement.

Community wealth building is something that more and more local authorities will take up. As things stand, the Scottish Government has supported five pilot areas. There is the work that is taking place in Ayrshire, and other local authorities are taking forward, under their own steam, community wealth-building approaches. As a Government, we have a commitment to support all local authorities to develop their community wealth-building strategies. I will have more to say about that in the new year. We also have a commitment to introduce legislation to support community wealth building, on which we will consult ahead of its introduction. We have established a bill steering group in that space, as well. Again, I will have more to say about that in the new year.

Community wealth building is also referenced in our national strategy for economic transformation. Community wealth building will be a key practical tool for realising the ambitions around a wellbeing economy. It will be integral to rewiring how our local and regional economies operate so that they do so in a way that sees less wealth extraction and more wealth retained by communities. As the model is rolled out and more local authorities adopt it, we will see more local authorities with their own community wealth-building plans. As the policy references, that will have to be recognised in planning decisions.

First of all, I recognise that monitoring is absolutely vital. With this new approach, which follows on from the Planning (Scotland) Act 2019, I am keen to have the closest possible engagement; indeed, I am very keen to hear the committee’s views and insights at the point of the framework’s adoption and as we move through the iterative process with the delivery programme. I want to make that crystal clear from the start.

We also need to recognise, as I think we all do, that the impact of planning can take time to feed through. Indeed, that is intrinsic to its very nature. Clearly, there are a number of different metrics that we could go through—and I will ask colleagues to touch on them in a moment—but I have to say that I was struck by Professor Hague’s comments at last week’s meeting. Although he recognised the importance of looking at how LDPs were shaping up and at planning appeal decisions, he said that there was also a need to discuss collectively and report on the real, tangible and measurable impacts that the NPF4 was having, particularly with regard to community engagement and ensuring that people felt involved. A very important rule not just for the delivery programme itself but for the impact of NPF4 on the ground is that we show these things in a clear and accessible way.

There are other strands of work where monitoring can play a role. I should point out that we are working towards recruiting the national planning improvement co-ordinator, a role that has been created through the 2019 act, and work is also being carried out the new planning performance framework reports that will replace the current voluntary regime. All of those can play a particular role in this respect, too.

Fiona, do you have any comments to make?