Mr. Paul Hogan:

It is really important that the development plan enables engagement with statutory providers such as the Department of Education. That should happen through development plan processes. Ms Graham talked about the objective of the review being plan-led. It is really important that is reinforced because there are mandatory objectives relating to community facilities in plans. They should be in both development plans and local area plans. It can happen that plans become out of date or that circumstances change. One of the things about the review is that, if we have longer plans, we need to be more agile and to have the ability to make changes more frequently in response to changing circumstances without complexity and fuss.

On the issue of statutory master planning, we have obviously had some engagement with the Attorney General's team, particularly on this area of plans and guidelines. It is very clear to us, and it is certainly the legal advice, that for plans to be relied upon for decision-making, they need to have two common characteristics, in addition to providing for good planning. These characteristics are public consultations and statutory environmental assessment. When you start to strip those things out, you move away from a good plan. As I have said, the content is obviously really important. As Mr. Ryan has said, this gives a degree of significance and importance to bringing it through a process in the chamber and to the environmental considerations. These things are not done lightly and they are really important. The opportunity for others to feed in has to be availed of and the plans have to be flexible for the future. That is one of the key caveats with regard to longer plans. The ability to make changes must be ensured.