Ease the slow squeeze

As we report in our analysis this week, the proposals outlined by the duo seem eminently sensible and have been well received by our industry. When it comes to the report’s target audience, however – central government and the incumbent secretary of state for levelling up, housing and communities in particular – I suspect that the intervention will fall on deaf ears. Or at least “la la la I’m not listening” ears.

The report calls for better funding for planning departments, greater clarity about who should take particular decisions and the establishment of a centralised team of top-level experts – able to parachute in to help local teams adjudicate unusually large or complex applications. If adopted, these ideas would mark a significant handbrake turn for government when set against long-term trends. Investment in local authority planning skills has been steadily squeezed for decades.

In May, a meeting of the Lords Built Environment Committee was told that central government funding for local planning authorities was £598m in 1983, 40 years ago. That sum would be worth £1.76bn today, whereas the actual current funding is about £1.3bn less, at £482m.

Not all planning expenditure is centrally funded, of course, but the total spending on planning across local authorities has been falling for years. A National Audit Office study published in June 2021 showed net spending on planning and development in England fell by 55.2% in real terms between 2010-11 and 2019-20, from £2.39bn to £1.07bn (the older figure adjusted for inflation).

At the same time, the demands placed on planning teams have increased. The Lords committee heard that new duties such as the requirement to consider nutrient neutrality, imposed from March 2022, have not been accompanied by any extra budget.

Unsurprisingly, planning departments are struggling to hire and retain good people. The most recent Local Government Association workforce survey, covering May 2022, reported that planning officers were among the hardest roles to fill, slotting into fifth place in a list of 48 problematic posts – behind only child and adult social workers, adult care workers and mental health social workers. At the county council level, more than eight out of 10 said they had trouble recruiting planning officers. Small wonder that the service provided by planning departments has stuttered and slowed over the past decade.

An analysis of the strain placed on planning departments led the Commons Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Committee to recommend, in a report published on 10 July, that the government “should publish a comprehensive resources and skills strategy for the planning sector”, which should “clearly explain how the resourcing and skill needs of local planning authorities will be met; and should be published before future reforms to national planning policy are implemented”. We can only look forward to the government’s response.

It’s not exactly news to observe that politicians often say one thing and do another. But no matter what gets said about promoting investment, housebuilding, urban regeneration and brownfield development, the reality is that less and less is being spent to ensure that any of these schemes can actually get through planning.