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REVIEW OF THE YEAR 2002-2003

The Scottish Executive Inquiry Reporters Unit

The Unit is part of the Scottish Executive Development Department. Its present office at Greenside Lane, Edinburgh, is separate from the remainder of the Development Department, and from the rest of the Scottish Executive. In early 2004 the Unit will move to offices in Falkirk where that functional separation will be maintained. The responsibilities of the Unit include:

• all planning and similar appeals lodged with the Scottish Ministers
• consideration of submissions on planning applications called-in by the Scottish Ministers for their decision
• non-planning cases, such as objections to compulsory purchase orders; objections to traffic regulation orders; harbours, fisheries and pollution cases
• arranging for these cases to be determined by public local inquiry, hearing, or by an exchange of written submissions
• supplying reporters to planning authorities to hold a local plan inquiry to consider and report on objections to local plans

Decisions and reports

The Scottish Ministers appoint a reporter to deal with each case. In the vast majority of cases, the decision is delegated to the reporter, who writes a letter explaining his or her decision and the reasons for it.

However, each year, the Scottish Ministers recall a small number of planning appeal cases for their own decision. A small number of planning applications is also called-in for Ministers' decision. In these cases the reporter prepares a report setting out the issues that have to be determined, together with conclusions, and a recommendation to Ministers. The report is then considered by the Scottish Ministers who subsequently issue their decision.

Written submissions, hearings and inquiries

Over 90% of the Unit's casework is dealt with by the exchange of written submissions ¹. Under this procedure, a structured and timetabled series of written exchanges takes place involving the appellant, the planning authority and any other persons who have indicated their interest. These are considered by the reporter, who inspects the site, generally in the presence of the parties, and then issues his or her decision or a report and recommendation.

In any appeal, the appellant or the planning authority can request to be heard by a person appointed by the Scottish Ministers. In these circumstances, a formal public local inquiry or a more informal hearing is held.

The conduct of public local inquiries is governed by statutory procedure rules ². The inquiry offers the opportunity for the presentation of evidence by the appellant, the planning authority, any other parties involved in the case (such as consultees like SEPA or SNH), and by members of the public. In public local inquiries, there is the opportunity for those giving oral evidence to be cross-examined. A reporter holds the inquiry, and then writes a decision letter determining the appeal or (in non-delegated cases) writes a report to the Scottish Ministers making a recommendation.

Hearings take the form of a discussion led by the reporter, which follows an agenda circulated in advance, following the exchange of statements prepared by all of the participants. There is no opportunity for formal cross-examination. Matters that do not need to be discussed at the hearing are considered on the basis of the parties' written submissions. These procedures are set out in a Code of Practice ³.

Staff resources

Inquiry reporters provide the professional input to the Unit's work, the core of whom are full-time and are established civil servants. A group of fee paid consultant part-time reporters is used to accommodate peaks in the appeals caseload, and to hold local plan inquiries. Both groups of reporters work from home.

The Unit's administrative staff organises all of the casework from its offices. These staff form casework teams, with individual case administrators taking responsibility for specific planning authorities throughout Scotland.

Volume of cases 2002-2003

Table 1 shows that there were 589 cases in hand at the beginning of the business year and that a further 1,118 cases were received during the year. In 2002-2003, 960 cases were determined by reporters acting under delegated powers and 68 by the Scottish Ministers. The Unit thus processed 1,028 cases to a decision in the course of the year.

Table 1: Volume of cases handled by SEIRU 2002-2003

* Including appeal and non-appeal cases

The number of cases in hand at the start of the year had increased on previous years. However, fewer were submitted in the course of the year, more were decided, and fewer were withdrawn or suspended. The result was that appeals in hand at the end of the year had fallen to 564, slightly below the level at the beginning of the year. This reduction is encouraging.

Types of cases received 2002-2003

Table 2 shows that appeals of all types accounted for 95% of total cases, much the same as last year. However, this masks some significant changes in the categories of appeal. This year, 66% of the cases involved planning permission appeals (compared with 54% in 2001-2002). Appeals related to advertisements accounted for 12% (compared with 21% a year ago). The proportion of cases involving listed buildings and conservation areas remained much the same as last year, at 8% of total appeals, although the proportion of planning enforcement appeals, at 7%, was slightly lower than last year's figure of 8%. The number of planning call-ins, compulsory purchase and other planning orders was close to half the 2001-2002 figure, but the number of cases involving roads and transport issues doubled. However, the numbers in both categories remained small. There were 9 requests for a local plan inquiry compared with 15 in the previous year (when only 12 inquiries took place). This year,
8 inquiries took place, and objections to a ninth plan, the Fife Minerals Subject Local Plan, were considered on the basis of written submissions. This was against projections by planning authorities of a demand for 27 inquiries at the start of the business year. The pattern of slippage in the programmes proposed by planning authorities therefore continues, and at a proportionately higher rate, requiring a more realistic approach to their programming.

Table 2: Types of cases received 2002-2003

* Rounded figures.
** Includes one case where objections were dealt with on the basis of written submissions.
*** Includes marine fish and shellfish farms; electricity proposals; flood prevention schemes; nature conservation orders etc

Trends in the cases received

By contrast with the overall number of cases, the number of planning permission appeal cases received increased significantly over the previous year (734 this year compared to 674). The types of development involved also changed. Domestic householder appeals increased from 111 to 150. Proposals involving the erection of new single houses increased from 154 to 187 and there was a significant increase in the number of single houses located in a green belt (from 3 to 17). However, the number of proposals involving 2-9 houses remained largely unchanged, and the number involving 10 or more houses fell from 59 to 49. The number of cases in the last 2 categories that were located in a green belt remained much the same as last year.

The continued decline in appeals involving major business and industrial developments (from 16 to 11) was again balanced to a degree by an increase in smaller scale business and industrial proposals (up from 53 to 89). Major retailing proposals showed little change, but smaller scale retailing proposals, including extensions, declined, from 80 to 40. The number of appeals involving hot food shops increased from 8 to 14. Appeals involving other small-scale developments increased slightly. The most striking change was the overall increase, from 11 to 45, in the number of appeals lodged for development within green belts defined in the development plan. This reversed a similarly striking decline in 2001-2002. Of 45 green belt cases dealt with during the year, 10 were allowed and 27 were dismissed. The balance of 8 cases remained undetermined at the end of the reporting year.

In addition to many small-scale but individually important cases, the following were the subject of major or controversial inquiries:

• residential developments in Aboyne, Currie, Dalkeith, Drymen, Eskbank, Inverurie, Meggetland (Edinburgh) and Penicuik;
• retail developments in Stirling and Haddington;
• a leisure development in Inverness;
• an abattoir and meat packing plant near Falkirk;
• a windfarm near Inveraray;
• a crematorium at High Blantyre;
• a planning and a scheduled monument consent application near Kilmaurs, Kilmarnock;
• a minerals development at Strathnairn.

Table 3: Planning permission appeals received 2002-2003

Method of determination and success rates

Table 4 shows the method of determination of cases and the success rates for different categories. Success in these tables is generally defined as a favourable outcome for the appellant or applicant, in that an appeal is allowed, an application is permitted, or an order is confirmed. The percentage of delegated appeal cases proceeding by public local inquiry or hearing, 7% (62 of a total of 960 cases) was slightly lower than last year's figure of 8%. The proportion of successful appeal cases in this category decreased from 47% to 40%. However, the success rate for written submissions appeal cases remained at 32%, giving an overall success rate for delegated appeals of 33%, similar to the figure of 34% in 2001-2002. Of the 11 non-delegated planning appeals, 3 (or 27%) were allowed. This percentage figure is significantly different from the 50% success rate in 2001-2002, when 4 of the 8 cases that were determined were allowed. However, the total number of cases in this category in both years was small, and the number of successful cases was only one fewer. The success rate for all appeals was 33% (compared with 34% last year). Last year's 100% success rate for roads and transport cases continued this year. However, there were only 4 cases in this category, all of which were related to the same development. The success rate for delegated advertisement appeals, 19%, was also the same as last year, and remained significantly lower than for other cases.

Table 4: Success rates by method of determination and type of case

* Includes marine fish and shellfish farms; electricity proposals; flood prevention schemes; nature conservation orders etc

The number of non-appeal cases processed to a decision in 2002-2003 was 57, compared with 81 in the previous year. The increased success rate in non-appeal inquiry cases of 81% (compared with 73% last year) reflected the high success rate for roads and transport and "other" cases. No Historic Scotland cases were determined. The 26 non-appeal written submissions cases produced a success rate of 31%, compared with 57% last year. The overall success rate for all non-appeal cases was 51%, which also was a significant reduction from last year's figure of 67%.

The Unit handled a slightly higher number of cases (1,028, up from 1,016). The overall success rate fell to 33%, from 36% in 2001-2002. Last year's Review speculated that the figures for 2001-2002 (which revealed a slightly lower number of appeals and an increased success rate) might be reflecting the increased strength of the plan-led system in discouraging appeals and proposals that are clearly contrary to development plan policies. This year's figures do not support the theory that 2001-2002 represented the start of a continuing trend. However, the success rate remains remarkably constant, at around one-third of all cases although this masks significant variations in individual small categories.

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