Scottish councils that fail to improve the performance of their planning departments may be named and denied the chance to bring in more cash to their area through increased planning fees.
Local Government and Planning Minister Derek Mackay issued the warning before new figures were released on Friday showing that for the 12 months to September 2011 only 12,455 new houses were started in Scotland. The target figure is 30,000. Some developers lay part of the blame on inconsistent and unpredictable decisions by council planners.
The minister told the Sunday Herald he was considering "radical change [that] ties the fee arrangement into performance" in order to improve Scotland's planning system in the course of 2012.
Mackay stressed that the culture of Scotland's planning system was ripe for overhaul, and made clear that he was considering an as yet undetailed revised "conditional" fee structure to force change and consistency.
Asked if he was prepared to "name and shame" underperforming councils, he said: "If a planning authority is not performing well, they won't have that new fee structure. If an authority persistently performs poorly, and - we can't get improvement, they will be de facto named as an authority that hasn't met the standard."
Mackay, a former leader of Renfrewshire Council and a former leader of the SNP at Cosla, stressed his reforms were "more of a matter of culture and leadership than regulation".
He is expected to make a statement to the Scottish Parliament within weeks, laying out his ambitions.
Allan Lundmark, head of planning for housebuilders' group Homes for Scotland, said: "The minister has left the industry with the strong impression that he is trying to get efficiency into the process without threatening sustainability.
"Getting that balance right is what planning should be about."
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