The Scottish Government

SRO: Jim MacKinnon

PM: Graham Jones

DA Lead:

KM Lead:

SE lead officer: Graham Jones

Estimated Project Cost: £10.2m

Estimated Start / End: End 2009

Background and context: What is the background to the project and the context in which it was established, what were the issues/drivers/opportunities which led to its inception- why?

The planning system plays a central role in coordinating Scotland's sustainable economic growth. The ePlanning Efficient Government Programme will deliver a step change in planning service delivery and drive forward efficiencies in the planning system, which employs around 1,600 people in local government, but affects the lives of all the people of Scotland.

The E-Planning Group was established in 2001 to coordinate the use of new technology in planning service delivery. In 2003 the then Deputy Communities Minister gave backing to the e-Planning Compact. This sets out the jointly agreed aspirations for an effective e-planning service and provides the objectives for delivering planning information and services in the short, medium and long term. Further information is provided in Planning Advice Note 70 on electronic planning service delivery. In addition, the Town and Country Planning (Electronic Communications) (Scotland Order) came into effect in July 2004. This removes the legal barriers which prevented some aspects of the planning system from being carried out electronically and allows online submission of planning applications forms. Some planning authorities have made excellent progress in applying new technology to improve the delivery of the planning service, however, there is a significant opportunity to make efficiency savings by coordinating and leveraging best practices across Scotland. A recent survey of planning websites shows that Scottish planning authorities are slightly behind Welsh authorities and considerably behind English authorities.

Objectives & Benefits -What are the aims/objectives/benefits & deliverables that the project is seeking to achieve, what improvements will there be as a result of this project - what?

The overall aim of the program is to drive efficiencies in the planning system across the whole of Scotland while improving customer service levels.

The aim can be broken down into its supporting components:

• Drive maximum efficiencies by working across all councils, national parks and consultees.

• Irreversibly move the planning system from paper to electronic processes.

• Develop shared services where appropriate.

• Standardise forms, communication, processes and share best practices.

• Leverage joint procurement power to save one-time and ongoing costs (only the latter can be used in justifying EGF funds).

• Bring all planning authorities to a consistent level of service delivery.

Scottish Executive Policy and Wider Aims

The Scottish Executive is committed to improving the planning system by: strengthening the involvement of communities; speeding up decisions; reflecting local views better; and allowing quicker investment decisions. The Planning (Scotland) Act 2006, introduces far reaching changes designed to modernise the planning system. E-planning is an integral part of this modernisation and culture change.

The programme will also support a set of policy aims that meet wider government aspirations:

• Reduce bureaucracy: the intelligent application forms will clearly explain the planning process and guide applicants swiftly through their submission of their application.

• Increase consistency: a standard set of planning application forms and advice for Scotland will be developed, which will reduce the potential for confusion and help drive consistency.

• Open government: provide more information with an easily accessible 24x7 service for citizens, agents, consultees and businesses. Users will be able to view plans of proposed developments, understand where applications are in the process and provide comments online.

• Inclusion: have more individuals, communities and businesses engage in the development of their neighbourhoods through increased online interaction in the creation of local plans and processing of applications.

The objective of this programme is to implement four streams to drive efficiency savings across all planning (development management and development planning), appeals and consultee processes nationally. The programme has been designed to be flexible and allow planning authorities to opt only for those streams where they currently do not have a capability.

• Online applications and appeals: a single shared service that provides consistent and easy to use forms to submit planning applications and appeals online. The intelligent forms will save staff time and communication costs by reducing the failure rate of applications during validation, reduce payment processing costs, remove the need for scanning hardcopies of plans into online planning information systems and speed up the processing of applications.

• Online planning information systems: allow citizens, agents and consultees to view planning applications (including the associated architects' drawings) and track them through the planning process online. This capability reduces the need for end users to call for updates on an application and reduces the need for planning authorities to photocopy applications and send them to internal and external consultees and community groups.

• eConsultations: facilitate the transition from paper to electronic consultation on planning applications and standardise the processes between planning authorities and external consultees. This will be achieved through a simple expert system that will provide consistency on when an application needs to be sent to a particular consultee, and nationwide standards for transactions between planning authorities and consultees in the planning process.

• Online local plans: significantly improve the internal efficiency of local plan preparation and production. This will be achieved by enhancing Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and leveraging proven best practices. By providing an online local plan mapping service, architects, developers, citizens and community groups can interact with the local plan process more effectively. It will enable users to carry out site specific queries in addition to viewing the local plan map online.

The project is seeking to achieve the following savings

The programme provides an opportunity to release £27.6m in savings It will also deliver considerable value to citizens and businesses by creating a higher quality, faster, more consistent, more inclusive and easier to use planning system. These end user benefits of £39m bring the total savings to £57m. The cash efficiency savings will cover the ongoing cost of the new systems to make the programme sustainable, while the staff savings will be used to provide a higher quality service with a greater processing capacity.

Improvements / Benefits as a result of this project will be:

The bulk of the costs for the programme will occur during the financial year 2008/9. There will be some efficiency savings in 2007/8 but not enough to cover the initial investment required. In subsequent years the benefits more than outweigh the ongoing costs. The benefits rise sharply from 2007/8 to 2008/9 as the systems are implemented. From 2008/9 the benefits grow gradually as online take-up increases.

This is a change management initiative to irreversibly move the planning system from paper to electronic based processes. It will leverage shared services, maximise joint procurement benefits and ensure the adoption of best practice in e-service delivery consistently across Scotland. This is integral to the wider modernisation of the planning system in the Planning Act.

Stakeholders and governance-Which organisations are involved in delivering the project, what are their roles and responsibilities, who is accountable? Who are the key stakeholders to whom the project is relevant?- who?

This is a partnership of all the key organisations involved with planning across Scotland - 32 councils, 2 National Parks, SEPA, SNH, Historic Scotland, Scottish Water, Transport Scotland and the Scottish Government.

Progress and Issues-What specific progress has been achieved to date ? -Milestones met/achievements?

Have any issues arisen causing delays in the work plan? Is project delivery still on schedule?

Project Progress

Online Application and Appeals (OAA)

The project is up and running with and anticipated launch date in early 2009.

Online Planning Information Services (OPIS)

Work on the OPIS project up and running. IDOX were appointed as preferred and the expected costs will be approximately £2.1 million to develop the solution, £1.1m in hardware (this based on estimates from IDOX) and £164k for year 1 of support and maintenance costs for the Scottish Government. Planning authorities will pick up the ongoing maintenance costs after the first year.

Online Local Plans (OLP)

Through the ITPD phase of the procurement for the Online Local Plans project, 3 ITPD responses were received, all of which are over budget. An evaluation panel was issued with the ITPD responses to assess the credibility of the responses. One supplier withdrew and it was decided that the remaining 2 of the suppliers should be taken through the competitive dialogue stage. After initial discussion with the suppliers, and challenges raised around the initial proposal, the remaining suppliers were asked to respond to an update to the OLP requirements to inform the competitive dialogue process. One of the suppliers has since withdrawn from the procurement leaving only one supplier in the competitive dialogue for the OLP project. The evaluation panel and the programme team are have concerns that the supplier cannot meet the requirements of the OLP project at the budget available.

eConsultation

The Programme has provided funding to SEPA (£295,000) and Historic Scotland £234,000) to implement their case management and document management systems. Funding has also been provided to the 5 statutory consultees to procure the hardware as part of the OPIS project.

The Programme team are currently scoping a pilot to trial using the OPIS solution in planning authority's to enable statutory consultees to access the applications electronically and to download to their back offices.

The output of the pilot will inform and facilitate information exchange between Planning Authorities and consultees across the whole programme.

Budget-What is the overall budget for the project and how is this to be released? What is the spend to date, is this as forecast?- how much?

£10.2m

Risks-What are the main risks in terms of project management, stakeholder engagement and communications, delivery approach and benefits realisation? What can be done to mitigate against these risks?- what if?

The inherent risks of the programme have been analysed and contingencies have been developed to minimise the residual risk. The programme has a low residual risk as it will use tried and tested 3rd parties to implement proven solutions. Embryonic governance structures are already in place, which can be used to manage the programme. A number of planning authorities have already implemented one or more of the services that are proposed in the programme. They have worked through ICT and change management issues and have provided a roadmap for a low risk implementation. There are also lesson to be learnt from the OPDM's e-planning projects.

The key constraints on the programme are time, resources and finances. The timing constraint is to have the systems installed and starting to produce efficiencies before the end of the financial year 2008/09. The resources constraint is 4.4 FTEs in the programme office and the equivalent of 1 FTE for a year in each planning authority. The financial constraints are the budgeted costs in the case and the required efficiencies.

The high level strategy to reducing the risk of the programme is to use tried and tested packed software, transfer implementation risk to vendors and constrain the residual risk through risk reviews. These would use PRINCE 2 and be held and monitored at the project and programme level.