A new CBI planning reform package for Scotland calls for planning fees to be ring-fenced, statutory deadlines for discharging conditions, shared planning services and a single gateway for complex consents.
Planning for Growth: Scotland, published on 21st September 2026, goes beyond a general call to speed up decision-making. It targets specific points where the CBI says money, staff and time are being lost, including late information requests, fragmented consenting routes and delays after permission has already been granted.
The report lands as the Scottish Government pursues its own planning and public-sector reforms. The CBI proposals are recommendations, not adopted government policy, but several could materially change day-to-day development management if taken forward.
CBI planning reform starts with fees and staffing
The most immediate resourcing proposal is simple: the CBI wants planning application fees ring-fenced so the income returns to planning services, rather than flowing into general council budgets.
It pairs that with more predictable public funding, new routes into the profession, apprenticeships and targeted recruitment from outside Scotland. It also wants a more flexible approach to planners working across authority boundaries.
The report says planning hubs should become properly staffed teams able to deploy experienced specialists to authorities handling complex applications, particularly in sectors such as offshore wind, hydrogen, carbon capture, floating wind and data centres.
That is a more practical proposal than simply telling every authority to recruit separately. It sits alongside a wider recommendation for shared planning services and lead-authority arrangements on the most complex schemes.
The full Planning for Growth: Scotland report is available from Planning Geek’s locally hosted copy.
CBI targets clock-stopping and condition discharge
The report also focuses on two less headline-friendly parts of the process that can have a major effect on delivery: requests for further information and the discharge of planning conditions.
For live applications, it says information requirements should be identified upfront and that stopping the decision clock should be genuinely exceptional, with a published justification. The intention is to reduce cases where additional requirements emerge late and the determination timetable repeatedly moves.
On conditions, the CBI wants updated national guidance to tackle their volume and complexity, followed by statutory deadlines for discharge. The report says the Scottish Government could use existing regulation-making powers under the Town and Country Planning (Scotland) Act 1997, rather than requiring a new Planning Act for that change.
It also calls for the Government to make its 52-week commitment for certain Section 36 and Section 37 electricity consents legally binding using powers available under the Planning and Infrastructure Act 2025.
A single gateway for complex consents
For larger projects, the CBI wants the system to feel less like several separate processes running in parallel.
Its recommendations include a single entry point within councils, published process maps and timescales, and a stronger role for the Scottish Government’s Major Projects Office in owning end-to-end delivery of large-scale infrastructure.
At national level, it proposes a single gateway across land-based planning, the Energy Consents Unit and marine consenting, backed by shared services and lead-authority arrangements where a project cuts across several bodies.
The CBI also wants national annual reporting on decision times, approval rates, backlogs and delivery outcomes. Its argument is that applicants dealing with several authorities should be able to see performance consistently rather than navigate separate local approaches.
Those recommendations are particularly relevant to energy, infrastructure and digital projects, where several consenting regimes can overlap. Planning Geek recently covered Scotland’s separate data centre EIA and hyperscale planning changes, which illustrate how quickly additional national requirements can become part of a live consenting programme.
The business poll is only 18 firms
The report’s survey findings need proportion. The snapshot poll covered just 18 CBI members in Scotland, drawn from sectors including energy, housebuilding, manufacturing, transport, retail and food and drink.
Within that small sample, 67% said their most recent major application or consent had taken more than a year. That is useful evidence of the experience of those respondents, but it is not a national survey of Scottish businesses and should not be presented as one.
Official Scottish Government figures provide a broader benchmark. In the first two quarters of 2025/26, major applications without processing agreements averaged 29.2 weeks in Q1 and 31.9 weeks in Q2. Major housing decisions averaged 44.9 weeks and 34.4 weeks respectively.
The Government cautions that major-development averages can move sharply because relatively few applications are decided each quarter. It also notes that Orkney and Angus could not provide returns for that period, so their equivalent 2024/25 data was used in the Scottish total. The current official planning statistics therefore give useful national context without pretending the CBI’s 18-company snapshot is representative.
The reform debate is now moving on several fronts
CBI Scotland says it will continue working with the Scottish Government and the Improvement Service as the planning reform programme develops. There is no commitment from Ministers to adopt the package as published.
The timing nevertheless matters. On the same day, the Scottish Government published a separate local government reform proposition that could place strategic planning with new regional authorities while moving some local decisions, including householder applications, to community authorities.
The two developments are distinct and neither is presented as the cause of the other. Together, however, they show that the debate has moved beyond whether Scottish planning should change and onto the much more practical questions of who makes decisions, how services are funded and how quickly consents should move through the system.
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