Memorandum by the Regional Management
Board for the RTPI South East Branch
Please find below the response to your call
for evidence. They are the combined responses of the Chair and
members of the Regional Management Board for the RTPI South East
Branch, based on research undertaken for other bodies and experience
from public and private practice of our members.
The Communities and Local Government Committee,
which is responsible for scrutinising the work and policy responsibilities
of the Government Department of that name, has decided to conduct
an inquiry into the skills capacity within local government to
deliver sustainable communities. The inquiry follows on from Sir
John Egan's Review of Skills for Sustainable Communities. It will
have particular reference to the following issues:
— recent changes to the range and detail
of knowledge and skills needed by staff within planning departments;
These changes clearly require a step change in current knowledge
and practice for planners. it's not just about the skill of existing
planners, but the lack of trained skilled planners overall to
deliver what has become a more complicated and time consuming
local development framework process and development control process.
As major influencers on the shape of development, this security
of knowledge and skills is critical for informing developer negotiations
and defending at appeal. Whilst the focus is on planners' skills,
there are wider issues such as support from the Inspectorate and
understanding of councillors of their role and relationship with
planning staff that can undermine attempts to wholeheartedly embrace
the challenges of sustainable communities;
— the main areas where a lack of skills
is most pronounced (examples, for illustration only, include:
use and viability of carbon reduction technologies, economic prosperity,
infrastructure planning and the viability of affordable housing
within market housing developments); We concur with these illustrative
areas of lack of skills, although arguably infrastructure planning
is becoming better understood. There is a wider underlying problem
of lack of understanding of design, particularly urban design
and how places work. This concern is focused on the public sector,
but also for private sector planners and architects that produce
the development proposals. It is a critical problem as urban design
and especially the aspects of poor layout and appropriate surveillance
can be a key contributing factor in breaking the economic, social
and environmental viability of a new development. The subtle mechanics
of rural economic prosperity need to be better understood by local
authority planners and members in order to achieve sustainable
new development in the countryside to maintain those communities
and economies whilst protecting the environment;
— the skills needed by, and level of
training provided to, councillors who make planning decisions,
including on the proposed local member review bodies; The turnover
of councillors ensures an ongoing need for regular training. SEEDA's
survey into the effectiveness of Design Champions found they wanted
more targeted training on topical issues and wanted to develop
their generic skills to enable them to be more effective. We are
concerned to hear that the financial support through the Academy
for Sustainable Communities to the Regional Centres of Excellence
is to be withdrawn, moving to self-financing, and that the RDAs
will find it difficult to substitute the funding. The events offered
by the South East Centre for Excellence were affordable, but may
now become as expensive as the commercially-run events;
— the role and effectiveness of agencies
involved in monitoring, developing and providing specialist knowledge
and skills for planning officials and councillors, and their response
to changes to the demands placed on planning departments; RTPI
SE Branch operates a Regional Activities Committee and CPD sub-group
that sets the agenda and delivers reasonably priced CPD events
that respond to current topics and are held at easily accessible
locations across the region. Whilst attendance was previously
patchy, our events are becoming more and more well attended, demonstrating
the demand amongst south eastern public and private sector planners
to build their knowledge. This is in addition to planners attending
seminars by major providers such as Haymarket and in-house seminars
and organisations such as Planning Aid. Some districts and counties
in the south east are pooling their resources to undertake jointly
commissioned seminars and enabling advice for major projects—within
the Thames Gateway—Kent Design Initiative Programme (formerly
ODPM's DENK programme) and Essex Design Initiative and others,
although this coverage is patchy. Other agencies such as the region's
three Architecture and Built Environment Centres run on-demand
short and longer courses targetted for planners and members primarily
on topics of design and sustainability, in partnership with CABE
and EH and SEEDA. Planning Schools of the region's three main
universities of Westminster, South Bank and Oxford-Brookes (as
well as Univ. West of England) run regular short and longer courses
on a variety of topical subjects for staff and members;
— the effectiveness of Government in
supporting local authorities as they respond to changes in the
demands placed on them, and-Planners need to find time to digest
this information as well as take time out from from busy caseloads
to attend courses. These courses would be helpfully focused on
delivery of day to day planning case load applications for specific
topic areas. More resources need to be provided for training staff
and members to attend the range of courses available and to be
able to take time from day to day delivery. Chronic understaffing
in some departments prohibits release for day courses; and
— the long-term effectiveness of measures
being taken by local authorities and others to mitigate gaps in
the skills and knowledge within planning departments. Some local
authorities are filling posts with temporary staff, often overseas.
They rarely stay, often moving back to their home country by the
time they are trained up, thus starting the cycle all over again
for remaining staff to train new colleagues. This is a poor use
of resources and more resources are required to train and maintain
experienced staff. Some local authorities are training up administrative
staff as planning officers, some of whom already undertake a skilled
technical role, and supporting them through day release RTPI recognised
degree courses at the Planning Schools. At the last SE RAC Meeting
an emphasis was put on the need to promote Planning as a career
within schools and sixth forms. It was felt that if Planning and
careers associated with planning were better promoted through
career conventions/career advisors etc then more sixth from and
college leavers would choose planning at an undergraduate level
as opposed to humanity subjects such as Geography. It was highlighted
that the Young Planners' Networks could play a key role in promoting
planning as a career.
|
