Development plans, lesson-drawing and model policies in Scotland

Abstract

This article considers the potential for model policies to be drawn up to tackle the perceived inefficiencies in the preparation and implementation of development planning in Scotland. Specific concerns relate to the delays in the preparation of development plans, keeping the plans up to date, and sensitive to changing conditions, and, in particular, the cumbersome procedures involved in drawing up development plan policies that “work”. Model policies are presented as a mechanism for sharing policies and as a way to minimize local planning authorities “reinventing the wheel” when drafting individual and commonplace planning policies. Drawing on the wider literature with respect to the policy cycle and lesson-drawing, the paper argues that the focus on the drafting of model policies may adversely affect the critical components of an effective public policy making discipline, and underplay the contingencies of lesson-drawing. Ultimately, therefore, model policies may undermine the solving of the “development plan puzzle”.