ABSTRACT
This chapter explores spatial planning in Scotland, arguably the administration where the UK’s devolution agenda has gone furthest. Scotland has always had a different planning system from the rest of the UK, so in some respects it has had a head start in establishing its autonomous credentials. Nonetheless devolution has given new impetus to creating a distinctive Scottish approach to planning, changing both the parameters and procedures for regulatory and forward planning. In broad terms this has seen a widening role for planning, granting it a form of metagovernance function for better policy integration, delivered principally through a new national spatial plan – the National Planning Framework – and legislative change.
