Chief Planning Officer
The Town and Country Planning (Scotland) Act 1997 (as amended) requires that each planning authority must appoint a Chief Planning Officer. The appointment and role of the Chief Planning Officer became a statutory requirement in April 2024, to advise authorities on planning and other functions relating to development. The Chief Planning Officer is to help strengthen leadership on planning and corporate recognition of the importance and positive influence of planning within their authorities.
For OIC, the Chief Planning Officer is Roddy MacKay. Roddy is the Head of Planning and Community Protection. He can be contacted by email.
The role of the Chief Planning Officer
The Chief Planning Officer should play a key role in the leadership, vision and strategic direction of the planning authority, carrying out a strategic role that works to raise the profile of planning in authority decisions. The Chief Planning Officer is to be an ambassador for the profession of planning, advising the authority about the carrying out of the functions conferred on them by virtue of the planning Acts, and any function conferred on them by any other enactment related to development. They will be the professional adviser to the local or national park authority as a whole on the spatial and place-based implications of decisions and investments in the short, medium, and longer term. This entails providing relevant professional planning advice and support to the authority’s senior management team and elected members and assisting in developing corporate objectives and translating these into place-based strategies.
Delivering National Planning Priorities
The Chief Planning Officer will work to deliver the current national priorities, policies or strategies, ensuring that local and national park authorities are aligned with national-level planning principles. They should contribute to the development and maintenance of plans and strategies which support the achievement of national planning priorities, promoting economic, environmental and social issues and ensuring the delivery of an inclusive and accessible planning system.
Champion of Place
The role will support place making ambitions within the authority. Acting as the authority’s placemaking champion would support this and the ability to work collaboratively with other officers and members who share these championing responsibilities, developing and maintaining working relationships.
Head of Profession
The Chief Planning Officer will be the head of profession in the organisation, and the senior responsible officer for the organisation’s planning service. This entails being a point of contact for key stakeholders of the organisation on planning and place, representing the planning authority externally as a respected ambassador of the profession, and leading the effective management and development of employees across the planning authority and ensuring they are consulted, empowered, skilled, valued and motivated to deliver a modern and effective planning service.
Performance and Improvement
The Chief Planning Officer will lead on ensuring that the planning authority embeds continuous improvement. In doing so they will ensure that the planning authority undertakes its obligations to publish an annual report on the performance of its functions and that this is submitted to Scottish Ministers and the National Planning Improvement Champion.
They will engage with the National Planning Improvement Champion to agree any areas of improvement and what steps might be taken to tackle them.
