In October 2013, a team from KMA and the University of Glasgow were commissioned by the Scottish Government to undertake a review of the Strategic Development Plans and their ‘fitness for purpose’. Vincent Goodstadt advised our team, drawing on his extensive experience of strategic planning and his role in helping establishing the current Scottish model. The research methodology involved gathering a wide range of initial data from a questionnaire to identify the key issues on content and process, before exploring these at a deeper level of detail through workshops and interviews in each of the strategic plan areas.

With nearly 500 contributions from participants, the output from the review was a report that culminated in 6 overview themes, with findings and proposals under each theme for the Scottish Government, its agencies and the SDPAs to consider. The themes reflect the key topics that emerged from the research as areas that could be strengthened to improve the Strategic Development Planning system in Scotland. Overall it was considered that they system was certainly ‘not broken’, but that it was been a good time to take stock in order to ensure that the system matures and evolves well.

The key improvement themes are around:
1. Collaborative leadership and governance
2. Effective engagement and scrutiny
3. Housing and community building
4. Transport and infrastructure role
5. The influence on delivery
6. Resourcing and skills

The full report is available to view online through the Scottish Government website here.

UPDATE: Response from the Scottish Government to the Review can be found here.