To ask the Scottish Executive what auditing has been carried out of the use by local authorities of section 75 of the Town and Country Planning (Scotland) Act 1997 or former section 50 agreements; whether any evidence has been found either of local authorities seeking benefits unrelated in nature, scale or kind to proposed developments or of developers offering unrelated benefits or inducements to obtain favourable decisions and whether any such evidence would require the development of notification procedures for the proposed use of section 75 agreements.

The most recent analysis of information held by the Executive relating to section 75 agreements was published in the Report of the Targets Working Group in October 1999. A copy of the report is available in the Parliaments Reference Centre.

The Executive commissioned research into The Use and Effectiveness of Planning Agreements in July 2000. Output from this research should be available within the next few months.

The Executive has no present evidence of inappropriate use of such agreements.