Robbie Calvert is the RTPI's Head of Policy and Public Affairs
I’m delighted to write my first blog as the newly appointed Head of Policy and Public Affairs. It’s a new year, but the perennial issue of skills & personnel shortages has come to the fore from the off with the publication of the English Local Authority Planning Capacity and Skills Survey 2023. This will be of no surprise to our membership and echoes several findings from our State of Profession Work 2023.
Understanding the existing capacity and skills needs of the English planning service is a crucial step in seeking to rectify them. The survey is a sobering read, with a headline that 91% of planning departments reported dealing with recruitment issues. Digging deeper into the work reveals some useful and interesting findings such as specific skills gaps relating to the implementation of Biodiversity Net Gain and bottlenecks with Legal teams. Regional issues have also been identified - something that emerging Combined Authorities perhaps may have to grapple with?
This work has raised a number of questions from myself. If recruitment or retention is an issue, how do we think this may change over time? What is the age profile of our planning departments? When we identify a skills shortage in Biodiversity Net Gain in planning departments is that through a lack of ecologists or the need to upskill our planners?
This work is a snapshot in time and we need to be mindful of an English planning system gearing up for significant change resulting from planning reform. The UK Government’s growth agenda could usher in huge new workloads for already stretched departments and create entire new strategic planning teams that will have a staffing need. We therefore eagerly await to see what targeted interventions have been developed to tackle the issues raised through this research, and the Institute would welcome the opportunity to support such work. The issues to me read as acute and necessitate the preparation of a comprehensive skills and resourcing strategy.
The report sets out that the survey findings have been used to shape policy design in other areas of planning reform. Ahead of the Planning and Infrastructure Bill touted for March I could not stress enough how important this is. We need legislation and policy proposals that can sensibly and realistically be met by our current system, whilst continually looking to bring capacity and skills on board. We eagerly await Phase 2 of the Governments Spending Review to be published in late Spring and hope it goes a long way to addressing resourcing issues that have left our planning departments to languish for years.
