- Asked by: Ms Wendy Alexander, MSP for Paisley North, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Monday, 06 December 2004
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Current Status:
Answered by Malcolm Chisholm on 16 December 2004
To ask the Scottish Executive whether it will publish a yearly review of real and relative house price changes for different house types in the major housing markets such as Glasgow, Edinburgh and Dundee and a parallel analysis of whether a sufficient supply of sites is being provided to meet demand.
Answer
A number of organisations, including private sector banks and Registers of Scotland regularly publish house price data at both a national and sub-national level. Many also disaggregate the national data by house type. As a result the Scottish Executive has no plans to publish additional house price information.
In respect of housing land supply, the relevant information is collected and held by planning authorities, and is not held centrally. Scottish Planning Policy 3: Planning for Housing (SPP3) says that planning authorities should carry out regular monitoring of housing completions and availability of effective land by preparing a housing land audit. In most urban authorities, these audits are carried out annually. SPP3 also requires planning authorities to ensure that their development plans identify the housing land requirement for at least 12 years from the plan’s expected date of approval, and to ensure that a five-year effective supply of land is maintained at all times.
- Asked by: Ms Wendy Alexander, MSP for Paisley North, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Monday, 06 December 2004
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Current Status:
Answered by Tom McCabe on 15 December 2004
To ask the Scottish Executive whether, as part of its Efficient Government programme, it will parallel the commitment in Sir Peter Gershon's report, Releasing resources to the front line: Independent Review of Public Sector Efficiency, to ensure confidence and credibility in the planned efficiency measures by inviting Audit Scotland to scrutinise the Efficiency Technical Notes before publication.
Answer
The Scottish Executive will invite Audit Scotland to scrutinise the Efficiency Technical Notes before publication.
- Asked by: Ms Wendy Alexander, MSP for Paisley North, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Monday, 06 December 2004
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Current Status:
Answered by Tom McCabe on 15 December 2004
To ask the Scottish Executive whether, as part of its Efficient Government Review, it intends to conduct a department by department review of the effectiveness of financial management parallelling that being undertaken by HM Treasury in the rest of the United Kingdom and, if so, what the timetable is.
Answer
As a Government Department, the Scottish Executive currently has a unified finance function under a single Finance Director.
Paragraph 35 of Building a Better Scotland: Efficient Government – Securing Efficiency, Effectiveness and Productivity states that we will undertake a review of the effectiveness of our financial management, in co-operation with the Treasury, in 2005. This will enable us to benchmark our performance against Government Departments elsewhere in the UK.
- Asked by: Ms Wendy Alexander, MSP for Paisley North, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 24 November 2004
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Current Status:
Answered by Johann Lamont on 13 December 2004
To ask the Scottish Executive whether it will publish (a) each local authority’s and (b) the Scottish average performance in respect of its development control performance target that 80% of major applications should be determined within four months, for each of the last five years.
Answer
I refer the member to the answer given to question S2W-12562, answered on 13 December 2004. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at:
http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/webapp/wa.search.
- Asked by: Ms Wendy Alexander, MSP for Paisley North, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 24 November 2004
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Current Status:
Answered by Johann Lamont on 13 December 2004
To ask the Scottish Executive how planning authorities have performed against its development control performance targets that (a) 80% of planning applications should be determined in two months, (b) 85% of planning applications should be determined in three months, (c) 90% of householder applications should be determined in two months, (d) 95% of householder applications should be determined within three months and (e) 80% of major applications should be determined within four months, in each year since the targets were set.
Answer
Planning authority performance is published in the Planning Audit Unit’s annual report. Copies of the specific data requested has been placed in the Parliament’s Reference Centre (Bib. number 34606).
- Asked by: Ms Wendy Alexander, MSP for Paisley North, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 24 November 2004
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Current Status:
Answered by Johann Lamont on 13 December 2004
To ask the Scottish Executive what structure plans have been approved since November 2003 and how long approval of each plan took.
Answer
Two structure plans have been approved since November 2003. The Western Isles’ Structure plan was approved in December 2003 and Lothian Structure Plan was approved in June 2004. The approval time for each plan was 34 and 51 weeks respectively.
- Asked by: Ms Wendy Alexander, MSP for Paisley North, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 24 November 2004
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Current Status:
Answered by Johann Lamont on 13 December 2004
To ask the Scottish Executive why the 2003 Sixth Annual Report of the Planning Audit Unit does not mention performance against its target that 80% of major applications should be determined within four months.
Answer
Performance statistics against the four months target were collected from 1 October 2001. To date, these figures have not been published, neither on their own or as part of the 2003 annual report of the Planning Audit Unit. The format of the report, established prior to the collection of this data, has not been reviewed until now.
The Executive is currently considering changing the format and content of future audit reports as well as the information published on the website. Starting from next year’s audit it is intended to publish the performance figures against the four month target on the Executive’s website along with other detailed performance information.
Tables showing planning authority performance against this target have been placed in the Parliament’s Reference Centre (Bib. number 34606).
- Asked by: Ms Wendy Alexander, MSP for Paisley North, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 24 November 2004
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Current Status:
Answered by Johann Lamont on 13 December 2004
To ask the Scottish Executive when it set the target that 80% of major planning applications should be determined within four months.
Answer
The target that 80% of major planning applications should be determined within four months was published in National Planning Policy Guideline 1: The Planning System on 24 November 2000.
- Asked by: Ms Wendy Alexander, MSP for Paisley North, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 24 November 2004
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Current Status:
Answered by Johann Lamont on 13 December 2004
To ask the Scottish Executive why it does not set specific targets for development control performance in respect of (a) major residential applications, (b) major business and industry applications and (c) other major developments.
Answer
The Scottish Executive has set the specific target that 80% of all major applications should be decided within four months. This target includes major residential applications, major business and industry applications and other major developments.
- Asked by: Ms Wendy Alexander, MSP for Paisley North, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 24 November 2004
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Current Status:
Answered by Johann Lamont on 13 December 2004
To ask the Scottish Executive how it intends to speed up increasing the percentage of Scotland covered by adopted local plans.
Answer
The Executive’s recent consultation on Making Development Plans Deliver proposed a series of measures aimed at ensuring that development plans are updated more regularly, including a new statutory duty to update plans within a defined period. A report on the responses to the consultation will be published shortly. A White Paper outlining the Executive’s proposals for modernising planning, including measures to speed up development planning, is expected to be published in spring 2005.
