Informed Solutions is proud to announce that its AI-powered decision support platform, InformedDECISION™ has been deployed nationally by NatureScot. Throughout a successful regional pilot in 2024, the platform has demonstrated the real-world benefits of applying innovative technology and data science to support expert decision makers in delivering sustainable land management objectives.
InformedDECISION™ brings the benefits of artificial intelligence and automation to the consultation and decision-making process, revolutionising the speed and efficacy of decision-making on Scotland’s Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI).
After a successful regional pilot, the platform uses AI to support experts’ decision-making on all statutory consultations and regulatory advice while improving user engagement. It is expected to reduce application processing times by up to 60% and cut average application completion time to just 11 minutes.
The streamlining of the consultations and advice process is allowing NatureScot’s experts to free up time for tackling Scotland’s nature conservation and protection policy priorities, most significantly the 30 by 30 target which requires Scotland to increase the geographical coverage of land-based protected areas by over 60%.
The rollout of InformedDECISION™ will transform NatureScot’s management of sustainable land development. For expert case officers, the platform harnesses AI to support and accelerate decision-making by helping officers identify relevant historical cases, reducing document management workloads, and helping to address and resolve queries that do not require specialist input early, significantly boosting efficiency. External stakeholders, including farmers, estate managers, landowners, and developers, will benefit from a streamlined application process with integrated mapping tools, intelligent workflows, and improved guidance, all designed to Scottish Government Digital standards.
The platform was co-developed by Informed and NatureScot as part of the GovTech Catalyst Challenge, with support from The Scottish Government’s CivTech Programme. The development process used Informed Solutions’ award-winning InformedTRANSFORM™ methodology and AI-Readiness Assessment service to accelerate and de-risk the development of the platform.
The regional pilot in NatureScot’s South Operations region has demonstrated significant real-world benefits, including:
- A 50-60% reduction in time taken to triage cases.
- A 65-85% reduction in manual effort required to gather and collate information from different sources and systems to support evaluation and response to SSSI applications.
- A 40-60% reduction in processing times for routine statutory consultations.
- Identifying and tackling applications that do not require consultation with NatureScot (approx. 25% of applications).
These outcomes underscore the platform’s potential to revolutionise planning processes nationwide and saw InformedDECISION™ win the Digital category award at the Scottish Planning Innovation Awards in March 2024.
To meet the CivTech programme’s need to develop flexible, reusable products that can be used to provide benefits across different parts of Government, the platform has been designed to be configurable for different situations and use cases where high volumes of complex applications require efficient handling, triage, review and decision-making.
Commenting on the news, Darren Hemsley, Head of Supporting Good Development, NatureScot, said: “Scotland is facing a nature emergency, and protected areas have a vital role to play in helping us build resilience in the face of the dual climate change and biodiversity loss crises.
“We are committed to protecting, restoring, and valuing these areas of special interest through evidence-based work with partners such as Informed Solutions. InformedDECISION™’s ability to integrate land and environmental data with case history in real-time, while providing immediate and tailored information for any specific site, will be a great resource for land managers, developers, and our own staff.”
David Lawton, Chief Innovation Officer at Informed Solutions, added: “It is a proud and hugely significant moment in our partnership journey with NatureScot to see this product develop from an initial concept to a national service.
“It is a testament to how crucial collaboration is within the innovation process. Working closely with NatureScot, CivTech, AWS, and planning stakeholders across the UK has enabled us to develop a truly transformative product that will have a positive, system-wide impact on planning with a particular focus on safeguarding sensitive areas and resources.
“With InformedDECISION™ now being rolled out nationally, we’re excited and proud to have developed a flexible digital platform that can not only support sustainable land management and planning in Scotland but also be leveraged to deliver huge efficiencies in complex case management and decision support for land management worldwide.”
