- Investment in new solutions allows four Scottish councils to collaborate more effectively and improve community engagement on their Strategic Development Plan -

TAYplan Strategic Development Planning Authority (SDPA), comprising Dundee City Council, Perth & Kinross Council, Angus and Fife Councils, has implemented the Objective Policy Lifecycle Management solution, to enable greater collaboration between the different authorities and drive efficiencies in the production of its combined Strategic Development Plan, and facilitate better consultation at different stages of the Plan’s production.

The TAYplan SDPA was designated by Scottish Ministers in June 2008 under the Planning etc. (Scotland) Act 2006 and covers a combined population of roughly 650,000. Its role is to prepare and maintain a Strategic Development Plan for the area covered by the four councils.  When completed, the Plan will replace the existing Dundee and Angus Structure Plan 2002, the Perth & Kinross Structure Plan 2003 and the Fife Structure Plan 2009.

In addition the four councils – working together as the TAYplan SDPA – will have to prepare a Local Development Plan for their specific geographical area. The plans present options for the preferred scale of growth and identify areas for development across the region.

Pamela Ewen, Strategic Development Plan Authority Manager, TAYplan, stated: “We needed a solution that would enable public consultations across a vast geographical area, and allow us to engage more effectively with the local community,”

“Objective Policy Lifecycle Management enables all participants in the development of policy to use a centralised, shared platform, which reduces the amount of resource, including costs. The solution also assists in delivering the project on time. In particular the solution greatly assisted TAYplan in delivering a public consultation on our draft policy document.  This managed online responses and TAYplan was able to very quickly report to their Board and Joint Committee an overview of the consultation responses” she added

The platform is being used to streamline the onerous task of creating complex strategy documents that require collaboration between multiple contributors and then have to be put out to public consultation.

Simon Etherington, UK General Manager, Objective Corporation, added: “There are growing pressures on public sector organisations to work together to deliver better services, at lower cost to their local communities. Our solutions are designed to help government bodies to connect more effectively and achieve these objectives.  In this case, we are providing a secure, online environment for people from four different councils to collaborate together on their future plans for the region.”

Objective enables different directorates and service teams to share and collaborate on cross-service plans, ensuring a consistent and joined-up approach to policy development. Common strategies that can be produced via the Objective shared platform include: Corporate Plans, Youth Justice Plans, Adult Services and Health Plans, LDF and LTP, Economic Development Strategies, Housing, Waste Management Plans and Strategic Assessments.

Pamela Ewen concluded: “We selected Objective to help manage the creation of our Strategic Development Plan, as it was the best solution for TAYplan on the market capable of satisfying our requirements within a quick timescale. The technical support has been excellent. TAYplan is a small core team of three town planners and working with Objective has allowed us to concentrate our staff resources on other areas of the Plan’s production and consultation.”