Communities and Local Government Committee

The PLANNING SKILLS INQUIRY

MEMORANDUM by The Institution of Economic Development

 

This submission has been prepared by the Council of the Institution of Economic Development (IED). The IED is the leading professional membership organisation for UK economic development practitioners. The views contained within this submission are endorsed by the Council of the IED, on behalf of the IED. The intention is to represent the views of those involved in the economic development profession, as other professional organisations represent the views of their given profession.

 

 

A point of concern

It is unclear whether the ambition for this inquiry is to evaluate "the skills capacity within local government to deliver sustainable communities" (Call for Evidence, 22 Jan 08) or to focus exclusively on planning skills, as the guidance questions suggest. It could be that this call for evidence is the first in a series and that future calls from the same inquiry will explore other professions, such as landscape architecture. If this is the case, it could have been articulated more clearly. If this focus on planning skills is the sole element of an inquiry into the skills capacity within local government to deliver sustainable communities, then this would be of some concern; work in this area has unequivocally shown that a cross-disciplinary team of professionals is required to best deliver this important objective. Alternatively, it may be that the Committee wishes to look exclusively at planning skills; if this is the case, it is disingenuous to badge the inquiry as revisiting the Egan Review, as its scope is clearly narrower.

Moreover, the Egan Review and, subsequently, the Lyons Review and the Review of Sub-National Economic Development and Regeneration (SNR) are in agreement that a buoyant and diverse economy invariably provides the foundation for sustainable communities. The Lyons Review and the SNR go further, showing a keenness to place local government at the heart of place shaping with a new statutory responsibility. With this in mind, the skills required by those charged with achieving growth in economically underperforming areas should be at the fulcrum of any examination of skills shortages.

The relationship between economic development and planning

The feeling amongst those working in economic development is that relations between the economic development and planning professions are currently very good. This is perhaps in contrast to the past, where the interaction might well have been characterised by mutual misunderstanding; economic development departments perceived planning departments to be hindering their attempts to encourage economic growth, and those in planning felt that those in economic development were negligently disregarding good practice in a single minded rush to secure growth on their patch.

This situation now sees economic development and planning functions working in a more co-ordinated fashion. This is perhaps in part due to some cross-fertilisation of the professions, although this has typically seen planners move across to work in economic development, rather than vice versa. A new shared agenda vindicates the notion that the objectives of the two professions are not necessarily in opposition. Planners have recognised that schemes that they are keen to implement have a greater chance of being approved if they are considered to have a good chance of delivering economic growth, while economic development officers have recognised that ad-hoc developments rarely maximise potential investment in the way that those within a strategic framework can.

The future framework

The planning skills required in local authority departments will be influenced by the future designation of the Regional Development Agencies (RDAs) as the lead agency for spatial planning. Until the future relationship between the RDAs and the local authorities is more firmly established, it is difficult to determine exactly who should be in possession of which skills. The progression of the SNR consultation will be influential in informing this debate.

This analysis extends to councillors as well as officers. Currently councillors are most likely to be involved in this domain through membership of a Development Control Committee (or equivalent) or a Scrutiny Committee. Under the status quo, councillors might be required to develop or monitor policy that will impact upon the local authority of which they are an elected member. Essentially, the objectives of council officers and elected members should be conterminous. Under the SNR proposals, councillors could find themselves serving on a regional committee monitoring the planning policies set in place by the RDAs. In this scenario, they would not necessarily be working with officers whose objectives were conterminous with theirs and their understanding of the principles and delivery frameworks would be more important.

Private provision and the retention of tacit knowledge

The questions outlined in this call for evidence sees the skills challenges facing the planning industry through the prism of local government. Currently, local authorities are in a position whereby any skills shortages that they experience can be overcome through commissioning external consultants who do possess the required skills. This relationship needs to be better understood for two principal reasons:

1. Local authorities are not in a position to control their own destiny. It is rational to expect the market to provide consultants as long as there is demand for them, but private sector consultants are exposed to skills shortages in much the same way as local authorities are. Therefore, expecting external expertise to be available on 'permanent stand-by' is unrealistic; not only might the private sector be unable to recruit people with suitable skills, but they also might find a sector that is more lucrative than local government in which to work.

2. During the development of a piece of work it is inevitable that not all of the information that is processed will be included in a final report. If every piece of work is commissioned to external organisations, a lot of tacit knowledge will be retained by the external organisation and not by the commissioner. This knowledge would be retained, should the organisation have the capacity to conduct the work in-house.

Available Evidence

The original Egan review (ODPM 2004) highlighted a persistent paradox. Delivering sustainable communities requires collaboration across a number of agendas, including core public services such as education and health services. However, combining the objectives of these agendas should not compromise the overall quality of their delivery. In other words, people charged with delivering sustainable communities are required to take a strategic view of the various policy areas and how they interrelate, while also possessing considerable expertise. In all of them. This is unrealistic, and this is acknowledged to some extent in the Egan review itself. The development of a solution to this challenge feels like unfinished business, and it is unclear exactly how it has been tackled since.

The most comprehensive piece of work looking at this area is Mind the Skills Gap (2007), which was completed by Arup for the Academy for Sustainable Communities (ASC). A selection of the most pertinent findings:

· Those organisations seeking to recruit Planners are expected to face a 27 per cent labour shortage by 2012 - the biggest of all the professional disciplines assessed in the study. This shortage will be felt most acutely by the public sector, who anticipates facing a 44 per cent shortage.

· The position of the regions is not uniform. Of the 9 English regions, two were expected to have a surplus (or at least a reduced deficit) by 2012. These were Yorkshire & the Humber and the West Midlands.

Michael Johnson

IED National Council Member