Scottish Government

Building Better Cities: Delivering Growth and Opportunities

THE EMERGING POLICY FRAMEWORK

Our cities require a joined-up policy response. This section outlines how we are responding to the range of policy challenges to provide the overall policy framework for cities, and how key Executive policies stitch together to provide the national context. It sets out how the policy framework is responding to the legacy of the past and the challenges of the future.

Working Cities, which adapt creatively to economic change and innovate to improve

A strong knowledge-orientated economy, including the science base and creative industries, helps cities innovate.

• Smart Successful Scotland, published in January 2001, set out the Scottish Executive's strategic priorities for the Enterprise Networks in promoting economic development;
• A new 40m equity package will allow more companies, including many in our cities, to invest more in R&D and the commercialisation of our science and technology base.

High quality further and higher education sectors reinforce linkages between the science, finance and business communities.

• Our future strategy for the Higher Education sector for the next 5 to 10 years will be published early in 2003;
• New Intermediary Technology Institutes for Energy, Life Sciences and Communications and Digital Media will strengthen Scotland's research base and help further develop university/business links.

Effective markets for land and property, and improved delivery of public services to provide infrastructure for business, will help cities resolve employment/housing mismatches, levels of vacant/derelict land, and lagging investment in infrastructure and in the public realm.

• The Executive is developing a National Planning Framework, for publication in 2003;
• The Scottish Enterprise network is delivering key projects at Edinburgh Waterfront, Glasgow Gorbals, Pacific Quay, Clyde Gateway and Waterfront, Ravenscraig, and Dundee Goods Yard;
• Communities Scotland are helping regenerate disadvantaged areas, empowering communities and improving the effectiveness of investment in regeneration and housing.

Learning Cities, which grow talent, provide lifelong opportunities and attract talent from elsewhere

All our young people deserve a first- class education to give them the best start in life.

• The Standards in Scotland's Schools etc Act 2000 sets out the national framework for improvement in school education, including the development of targets for improvement in the outcomes of education by 2005-06;
• Improved ICT in schools will be delivered through the 20m National Grid for Learning programme.

A culture of lifelong learning will get the best from all our people.

• Learning in employment is being promoted by increasing Modern Apprenticeships to over 25,000 in employment and training by 2006, targeting under-represented groups;
• Over 1,200 people are being helped into work through the 6m Training for Work programme;
• Approximately 39,000 young people from low income families are being or will be helped to remain in education, through the 34m Educational Maintenance Allowances programme.

Learning cities are attractive and exciting cities in which to live and work, which helps attract and retain the best from elsewhere.

• Record numbers of Scots are participating in FE and HE, with 60,000 more enrolments in FE, and 50% participation in HE.

Connected Cities aid accessibility for goods and people and encourage sustainable choices

Accessibility for business coupled with sustainability of transport choices will require reduced congestion.

• Scotland's Transport: Delivering Improvements, published in March, provided a comprehensive vision for transport, built on the principles of sustainable development;
• Executive priorities are tackling congestion, increasing public transport accessibility and integration, and completing missing motorway links.

A package of measures is required to realise a sustainable transport system.

• We have delivered free local off-peak bus travel for elderly people and those with a disability - making it easier for them to travel, improving their quality of life;
• The Executive is delivering our top priority road and rail projects, public transport projects flowing from the Central Scotland Transport Corridor studies, and securing a new Scottish passenger rail franchise;
• Research is underway on the main drivers behind changing land-use and transport patterns in Scotland, and the Executive is working closely with local authorities on demand side measures, including congestion charging.

Living Cities provide good quality, affordable housing for strong communities in a sustainable environment

Strong sustainable communities provide good quality housing, education and healthcare, improved public spaces, personal safety, and noise and nuisance-free environments.

• Better rights and standards for tenants and a fairer approach to Right To Buy sales, are being secured through the framework for social rented housing in the Housing Act 2001;
• We are modernising poor quality housing by introducing the Scottish Social Housing Standard to bring housing in the social sector up to standards acceptable for the 21st century;
• The Executive is providing local authorities with funding options to lever in investment, including a streamlined whole-stock transfer process and access to the prudential borrowing regime;
• We are ensuring that the substantial levels of housing investment released through whole-stock transfers are better linked to other regeneration spending to support comprehensive area renewal plans;
• Low-income households and pensioners are being supported to insulate their homes under the Warm Deal, and we are providing free central heating and insulation to social sector tenants and the over 60s under the Central Heating Programme;
• Safer and cleaner streets are being secured through the "Quality of Life" initiative to improve the local environment;
• Neighbourhood wardens and local mediation services aimed at tackling crime, vandalism, anti-social behaviour and the poor quality of the environment will be introduced.

Lively Cities provide a "city buzz" in culture, tourism, shopping and leisure

A city's retail sector, its visual arts, architecture, theatre, music and vibrant city centre help create "city buzz".

• We are working to improve Scotland's urban design skills through encouraging better training for Planners and introducing a Designing Places Award for students as part of the 2002 Scottish Planning Quality Awards.

The economic contribution of culture is vitally important, both directly in attracting domestic and overseas tourists and indirectly as a magnifier of Scotland's image at home and abroad.

• The importance of our cities is recognised in the implementation of the National Cultural Strategy;
• Our cities are of fundamental importance to the cultural life and identity of Scotland;
• Our cities are a major tourism asset and Edinburgh and Glasgow are also major tourism gateways to the rest of Scotland at the heart of Visit Scotland's marketing effort;
• Our Major Events strategy, launched at the end of November, will help our cities;
• Scotland has major assets in the form of nationally and internationally significant museums and galleries collections, though there is an imbalance between Edinburgh and our other cities. The Executive is developing a framework of action for Scotland's museums and galleries which will be based on the principle of a distributed national collection. It will recognise, among other things, that museums and galleries are a key part of the attraction of cities to tourism, inward investment and overall quality of life.

Sustainable Cities will need to manage resource use, energy and travel

Scotland's cities offer the greatest opportunities to develop financially viable recycling schemes, significantly improve energy conservation and promote more environmentally sustainable forms of transport.

• We are increasing recycling and composting of municipal waste to 25% by 2006, through the Local Government Bill and the 230m Strategic Waste Fund;
• We are encouraging the use of less polluting forms of transport to address air quality "hot spots" in our cities and support Air Quality Management Areas.

Environmental justice focuses on the legacy of unsustainable choices made by previous generations. Poor people and poor environments all too frequently coincide.

• Communities' local environments are being improved by the new Quality of Life fund set aside to improve Scotland's neighbourhoods;
• The National Waste Plan is being implemented reducing our dependence on landfill sites;
• Scotland is implementing the Aarhus Convention, improving people's access to environmental information and justice.

Well-governed Cities with community involvement and strategic national engagement

Good governance requires community involvement and local and national strategic engagement.

• The Review of Strategic Planning, the Community Regeneration Statement and the Cities Review provide the building blocks of an overall spatial policy for Scotland. This will be taken forward in the National Planning Framework;
• Community Planning provides the overarching framework and other plans and initiatives should flow from it to better link national priorities (jobs, health, education, transport and crime) with local priorities.

Focusing on partnership and delivery will improve policy making at city-region level.

• The patchwork of formal and informal arrangements since Local Government re-organisation in 1996 confirms the need for city-region governance arrangements. Nevertheless, the re-introduction of an additional tier of government is not the only response, nor is it the most effective. Effective joint working between local authorities, key stakeholders and the Executive is the basis for improved city-region governance;
• Greater experimentation and innovation is also required in our use of delivery mechanisms and vehicles. New approaches to delivery have the potential to contribute at a variety of different circumstances and geographical levels. Urban Regeneration Companies have the potential to provide the strategic co-ordination of physical, social and economic regeneration of an area which has been lacking in the past. Business Improvement Districts could help city centres become more attractive and successful, helping business and communities. We will consult early in 2003 on the scope for Urban Regeneration Companies and Business Improvement Districts;
• Appropriate information and evidence at a local level is needed to improve the development and monitoring of effective policies;
• The Scottish Neighbourhood Statistics project will help transform the production, dissemination and use of data, at a variety of geographical scales;
• Geographic Information Systems and the role these will play in modernising how the Executive does its business have been identified as an important area for further development;
• A Scottish Executive Geographic Information Systems strategy has been developed to better co-ordinate and enhance the use of spatial information both within the organisation and in our dealings with partners and the public.