Seòmar agus comataidhean

The first meeting of the committee took place today. The membership of the committee is:ChairmanSheriff Principal John McInnesMembers

Mr Jim McColl	Chief Executive, Clyde Blowers Ltd
Professor Peter Duff	Aberdeen University
Sheriff Brian Lockhart	Sheriff at Glasgow
Mr Tim Huntingford	Chief Executive, West Dunbartonshire Council
Mr Tom Dysart	Procurator Fiscal's Office, Glasgow
Mr Robin Christie	Stipendiary Magistrate, Glasgow District Court
Mrs Phyllis Hands	District Courts Association
Mrs Helen Murray	Justice of the Peace, Perth Commission Area
Chief Constable David Strang	Chief Constable, Dumfries and Galloway
Mr David McKenna	Chief Executive, Victim Support Scotland
Mr Cliff Binning	Scottish Courts Service
Mr Alistair Duff	McCourts Solicitors, Edinburgh. The Law Society of Scotland

SecretariatSecretary: Mr Hugh Dignon, Scottish Executive Justice DepartmentCOSLA and the Commission for Racial Equality have also been invited to nominate members of the committee and are expected to do so in December.The remit of the committee is:To review the provision of summary justice in Scotland, including the structures and procedures of the Sheriff Courts and District Courts as they relate to summary business and the inter-relation between the two levels of court, and to make recommendations for the more efficient and effective delivery of summary justice in Scotland.

Local authorities are not obliged by law to apply bio-diversity principles when considering planning applications. However, the National Planning Policy Guideline on Natural Heritage (NPPG 14) stresses the importance of safeguarding and enhancing biodiversity and states that planning authorities should provide for the conservation of biodiversity in development plans. It also stresses that planning authorities should have full regard to natural heritage matters when considering individual planning applications. We have also issued a Planning Advice Note, PAN 60, on Planning and Natural Heritage setting out the ways in which planning can improve biodiversity objectives.National Planning Policy Guidelines and Planning Advice Notes may, as far as they are relevant, be material considerations to be taken into account in development plan preparation and development control.

Planning authorities in Scotland have the primary responsibility for taking whatever enforcement action may be necessary, in the public interest, in their administrative area.We collect statistics, on a six-monthly basis, from planning authorities including information on the number of Breach of Condition Notices issued. This information will be included in the next report of the Planning Audit Unit, which will be published early next year and will be available on the internet.

This information is not held centrally. However, the waste management licence conditions applied to landfill sites require the operator to carry out monitoring of emissions to water and air from the site. The results of this monitoring are available on the Scottish Environment Protection Agency public register.

No. Once such decisions are made, the responsibility for checking on compliance with the permission or for any enforcement action rests with the planning authority for the area.

Information on planning appeal procedures is contained in the booklet Planning Appeals in Scotland produced by the Scottish Executive Inquiry Reporters Unit. Further information is available in Circular, SODD 17/1998 Planning and Compulsory Purchase Order Inquiries and Hearings: Procedures and Good Practice. The booklet and circular can be obtained from SEIRU and are also available on the Scottish Executive website. These documents are routinely supplied free of charge by SEIRU to anyone making representations about a planning appeal.Professional advice may be obtained from Planning Aid (Scotland), an organisation run by volunteers from the planning profession. There is no financial assistance available to members of the public who appear as objectors at a planning inquiry.

The Scottish Executive is committed to the implementation in Scotland of the UK obligations under the Convention on Biological Diversity.Ministers agreed the establishment of the Scottish Biodiversity Group in 1996 to co-ordinate and take forward the UK Government's commitments, in Scotland, to the Convention on Biological Diversity. Full details of the work and objectives of the Scottish Biodiversity Group have been published in Biodiversity in Scotland: The Way Forward (1997), Action for Scotland's Biodiversity, 2000 and A Flying Start: Local Biodiversity Action in Scotland, 2001. A further report, commissioned on behalf of ministers, on the progress of the Scottish Biodiversity Group in its first five years, will be presented next year.

The Executive issued a consultation paper this month seeking views on a range of proposals aimed at securing more effective public involvement in planning.

The Executive has undertaken research specifically on the effectiveness of existing arrangements for advertising planning proposals. A copy of this is available in the Parliament's Reference Centre (Bib. number 6475). The findings of the research are being taken into account in preparing a consultation paper on improving public involvement in planning.

The purpose of the guide is to help those people whose contact with the planning service is intermittent or infrequent. It provides a broad overview only. While we have asked planning authorities to make the guide widely available, we do not require them to tell us what information they routinely make available to those wishing to lodge an objection to a planning application or appear at a public inquiry.Information on planning appeal procedures is contained in the booklet Planning Appeals in Scotland produced by the Scottish Executive Inquiry Reporters Unit (SEIRU). Further information is available in Circular, SODD 17/1998 Planning and Compulsory Purchase Order Inquiries and Hearings: Procedures and Good Practice. The booklet and circular can be obtained from SEIRU and are also available on the Scottish Executive website. These documents are routinely supplied free of charge by SEIRU to anyone making representations about a planning appeal or seeking information about inquiries and hearings.