The State of the Planning Nation: A new year and some not so new challenges
Happy New Year!
Welcome to 2025.
I hope you all had a relaxing and restorative break over the Christmas period, as this year looks set to be very busy indeed!
By way of a very brief snapshot, over the next twelve months, we have been promised:
- A Planning & Infrastructure Bill (most likely in March) that is likely to include the government's proposed solution to the issue of nutrient neutrality
- The English Devolution Bill and the beginnings of a major overhaul of local government in England
- More action on planning fees
- A consultation on National Development Management Policies
- The implementation of the LURA provisions related to tracking and boosting build-out rates
- Revised guidance on viability assessments
- More CPO reform; and
- A raft of other changes and reforms
This blog, however, is not about any of that.
Instead of starting the year thinking about the future; let's take a moment to consider how ready we are to grapple with it.
Yesterday, MHCLG published the findings of the first Skills and Capacity Survey, which was conducted in 2023. The plan is to use it as a baseline for judging whether any progress is being made in tackling the, well-documented, capacity issues in local planning authorities; by re-running the survey on an annual basis, and comparing changes over time.*
The report is a fascinating read, and I recommend spending some time with it. Below are just a few of the statistics that caught my attention:
- 91% of responding planning departments reported some difficulty with recruitment, and seven 72% reported some difficulty with retaining staff, in the last 12 months.
- 97% reported some planning skills gaps and 87% reported gaps in broader skills.
- 72% of planning departments indicated that they currently had skills gaps with regards to ecology and biodiversity.
- Masterplanning and design codes were seen as a major planning skills gap (62%) and were identified as a top three priority for planning skills in the coming year by 29% of planning departments.
- Design codes were also seen as a key challenge of the Levelling Up and Regeneration Act (53%), along with the Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) (42%).
- 25% of planning departments reported vacancies in heritage and conservation, monitoring, and the CIL. Around half of planning departments reported skills gaps in urban design and architecture, as well as CIL, Section 106 and viability assessments.
- Digital planning was seen as a skills gap for 47% of those with any skills gaps, but was only a priority for the next 12 months for 22% of planning departments
- Around three in four planning departments reported significant barriers to resourcing due to the following: competing for talent (78%), attracting appropriately qualified candidates (77%) and a lack of qualified candidates (77%). These were all reported to be more of a barrier than funding issues (66%).
- Two thirds (66%) of planning departments reported that staff had left to work for a different local authority, compared with almost half (47%) reporting staff going to the private sector.
- Over a third of planning departments said staff had retired (35%).
Whilst the Survey presents a far more nuanced picture than many might have assumed, the overall image is clear**. The vast majority of local planning authorities, sitting at the heart of Labour's planning reform agenda, are not currently set up in a way that will enable them to deliver it.
This is a problem… and it needs fixing.
So.
What can be done to tackle it?
How to ensure that Labour's bold new planning agenda is given the best possible chance of success?
Here is where I have to admit to being wholly out of my depth. I am a private practice planning solicitor, who has never worked for a local planning authority. So feel free to take what I am about to say with a large pinch of salt. It is, however, informed by the work of both the Planning Advisory Service (PAS) and Public Practice, who have spent an awful lot of time thinking about the issue.
To be able to deliver the promised 1.5 million homes by the end of the parliament, the Government needs to attract more people into public sector planning, and people with a wide variety of skills. From ecology to heritage, from policy to CIL.
Whilst steps are being taken to help with this, it is likely to require more than the 300 new graduate planners promised in the Labour Manifesto.
Addressing these skills and capacity issues will not only require changes to remuneration and working conditions***, it will also require a change in perspective.
When I was researching this post, I stumbled across some research that PAS had conducted, interviewing those planning officers who had recently left local government for the private sector.
Amongst the findings of that research were the following:
- 100% of respondents who had left for the private sector would return to local government if their reasons for leaving could be addressed
- 93% stated that the culture of local government was a strong attraction, with one respondent stating that “it's a sense of pride for the borough; the team was fiercely loyal to the borough and communities”
- 93% of respondents also missed the variety of work that being in a local authority provided.
Having spoken to many LPA planners throughout my career, it is clear that many are motivated and driven by both a real love of place and a sense of public duty. That has the ability to inspire - if you don't believe me, check out this “Pathways to Planning” recruitment video.
Perhaps focusing on those aspects of a career in public service, alongside more traditional measures to improve retention, might assist a little.
It might also require a little creativity around where those skills, that are so desperately required, come from.
To borrow a quote that Pooja Agrawal, the chief executive of Public Practice, gave to the New Statesman:
“We’ve always pushed for a broad definition of planners as place-makers. To create better places or deliver homes, you need a range of skills – you need skills in housing delivery, urban design or in sustainability – not just traditional planning skills.”
What is obvious, however, is that this is an issue that individual LPAs cannot resolve on their own. There is a lot of work that needs to be done to ensure that our planning system is capable of rising to the aspirations that the government has for it.
Whilst I have no clear answers as to how these issues can be resolved, it is at least reassuring to see that the government:
- Has acknowledged the scale of the problem; and
- Committed to actively tracking progress/ improvements over time.
To mis-quote a mentor of mine*!, we value what we measure. Without a clear objective data showing the scale of the issues we are facing, and a way of tracking progress, there is no hope of improvement.
It is also encouraging to see that when launching the report, MHCLG has also promised a “wider programme of support, working with partners across the planning sector, to ensure that local planning authorities have the skills and capacity they need, both now and in the future, recognising the resources and morale challenges”.
I think it is fair to say, from the findings of this first survey, that additional support cannot come soon enough.
*kind of like a national “great place to work” survey for the english planning system.
** it somewhat resembles a Monet in that respect
*** and possibly local government reform
*! Sorry, Carl
Planning departments reported widespread problems with recruitment, retention and
skills gaps. These issues were reported to have a negative impact on service
delivery and departments’ capacity to prepare for future planning process changes
set out in the Levelling Up and Regeneration Act.
Of the planning departments that responded to the survey, nine out of 10 reported
some difficulty with recruitment (91%), and seven in 10 (72%) reported some
difficulty with retaining staff, in the last 12 months. Almost all (97%) reported some
planning skills gaps and almost nine in 10 (87%) reported gaps in broader skills.
As a result of these difficulties and skills gaps, planning departments reported that
they experienced increased workload (84%), difficulty in meeting workload demands
(79%), and reduced staff morale (68%). They also reported difficulties in introducing
new working practices or technical systems (40%)”
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