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The Planning Skills Inquiry
Memorandum by the Academy for Sustainable Communities
27th February 2008
Briefing on the Academy for Sustainable Communities (ASC)
1. ASC is the national centre for delivering the skills and knowledge needed to make better places. Our remit is to foster a shared understanding of what it takes to make sustainable communities and encourage an integrated, cross sector approach to ensuring there are enough people equipped with the skills and knowledge to develop and maintain them. ASC was established as a result of the recommendations set out in the Egan Review, "Skills for Sustainable Communities" which concluded that key factors hampering the delivery of sustainable communities were:
· A combination of a lack of generic skills (such as community engagement, visioning, project management) and labour shortages in the core built environment professions - e.g. town planners, transport planners, civil and structural engineers, landscape architects and surveyors. · A lack of opportunities for cross-sector, cross-professional learning.
2. ASC's role involves increasing the skills base of the sector as a whole by promoting generic, technical and specialist skills amongst planners and other professions and by encouraging them to work more effectively in multidisciplinary, cross sector teams. The focus is on building capacity and changing working practices on the ground.
3. Our strategic objectives are focussed on continuing to strengthen the nation's capacity to develop and maintain sustainable communities achieving the maximum impact in the shortest time. Specifically, we aim to:
· Build the skills, knowledge and capacity of individuals in the public, private and third sectors responsible for creating sustainable communities. · To champion a shared understanding of sustainable communities and provide practical knowledge to support delivery
Summary
4. The Academy for Sustainable Communities is pleased to submit evidence to the Inquiry on the skills capacity within local government to deliver sustainable communities and we would like the opportunity to present oral evidence in due course.
5. Evidence from ASC's Mind the Skills Gap (MSG) research, conducted in 2007 on the skills gaps facing the sustainable communities professions, suggested that labour shortages and skills gaps (generic, specialist and technical) are set to continue widening to 2012 and will hamper delivery of the government's ambitious targets if further action is not taken to build skills and capacity across the sector. The planning profession is one of the professions projected to experience the most significant labour shortages, despite the action that has been taken by the government to encourage more entrants into university planning schools, and the profession has significant gaps in the skills of practising planners.
6. Key findings from the Mind the Skills Gap research included:
· Sustainable communities workforce accounts for 3.2% of England's workforce as a whole, a relatively high proportion compared to other professions. · There has been significant growth in the workforce but experience and forecasts suggest a significant shortfall in supply of suitably qualified professionals of between 6% and 91% depending on profession. · The labour shortage for planning by 2012 is projected to be 46% if no action is taken. · Organisations expect to have particular difficulties recruiting landscape architects, urban designers and planners, particularly in the public sector. · Multi disciplinary and cross sector working are essential to successful delivery.
7. ASC works across the professions and across the public, private and third sectors. It has no specific remit for the planning profession or for the local authority elected members involved in planning per se, although these are clearly a core part of ASC's wider remit. ASC works closely with a range of key partners to encourage a more joined up approach to skills and capacity building across the wider sector. These key partners include professional bodies such as the RTPI, relevant sector skills councils and the local government improvement bodies (including the IDeA and PAS).
8. The model ASC works to is that the education, training and development of a single professional group such as planners should not be carried out in isolation. That steps should be taken to encourage a more cross-disciplinary approach across the range of professions that need to work together to make successful places (this includes planners, landscape architects, urban designers, surveyors, neighbourhood workers etc). This shared understanding of the agenda also needs to be fostered across the public and private sectors to ensure an integrated approach to placemaking is encouraged. Though there are good working relationships between the key bodies involved in building capacity in the planning sector there is room for further improvement in delivering skills and capacity building especially at a regional level.
ASC's impact to date
9. The impact ASC has on the market is directly linked to the resources it can lever from other organisations as well as its own core funding. ASC's role in influencing others to deliver is key. From a standing start in 2006 with a budget of £12.739m over our first two years of operation, ASC has influenced the learning of 10,000 professionals. This amounts to 1.3% of the sustainable communities workforce. In this set up phase resources have been directed towards developing and piloting skills and capacity building programmes, and products. We have built relationships with key partners and stakeholders and got them to work together. We have focussed on attracting new entrants into the sector and worked with community leaders and professional institutes to build capacity. Most importantly we have significantly increased the understanding of the scale and nature of the skills and capacity issues across the sector.
10. ASC has made strong progress in delivering targeted outcomes across key markets. We have:
· Promoted much stronger cross disciplinary working. This is important as it encourages practitioners, including planners, to work together to achieve common objectives through cross sector and cross profession learning including Continuous Professional Development.
· Developed and implemented a number of strategic learning programmes to deliver generic skills. This has provided new opportunities for people to train for jobs in the sector and embrace a wider understanding of sustainable communities and the roles of different professions in creating and maintaining them.
11. Our work has begun to increases skills and capacity within the sector, it has given the tools and knowledge to practitioners to enable them to work in and lead multidisplinary teams, and change behaviours and practice on the ground. ASC has engaged with: · 10,000 professionals involved in the sustainable communities sector. · 20,000 young people and 680 teachers through curriculum making activities, raising their awareness of sustainable communities, the role they personally can play and careers opportunities in our sector. · Nearly 65,000 young people on careers activities, encouraging them to take up careers in the sustainable communities professions.
12. ASC has delivered new learning programmes and resources to meet clear market gaps:
· A new Foundation Degree in Sustainable Communities with the first cohort starting in January 2008. This will be rolled out to two universities in 2009. This provides a pathway into careers in planning and housing as well as other professional areas. · A new Generic Module on Sustainable Communities has been piloted successfully at undergraduate, postgraduate and CPD levels. A further ten HE institutions have signed up to pilot the module from January 2008. The student and tutor feedback has been exceptional. · A cross-disciplinary, accredited professional development programme for managers, "Raising Our Game", with a variety of qualifications at NQF Level 7 and Level 5 in 6 regions involving 139 practitioners, with further roll out planned in Spring 2008. Feedback has been extremely strong from participants and employers. · The first national Sustainable Communities Awards. The second awards will take place in June 2008. · Seven quality learning resources have been produced (on course to meet the target of ten by year end), including a Citizenship Toolkit and an e-learning CPD module, "In a Nutshell", a training resource for trainers, has been requested by 8,000 people to date.
13. ASC has also:
· Re-launched the Leaders' Network for Sustainable Communities with 70 network members at CE level in regeneration vehicles, local authorities, Housing Market Renewal Pathfinders. · Communicated extensively via its website, with more than 200,000 visits (exceeding the year end target of 150,000 visits). · Developed the "ASK: What If" dedicated careers website which has had more than 26,000 visits to date. · Investigated the skills gaps in the sector and produced the research report "Mind The Skills Gap" which highlighted the need to continue and accelerate efforts to address labour shortages and skills gaps in the sector.
14. Of particular relevance to the planning sector, ASC has:
· Supported the development of case studies and wider dissemination activities for Community Planning.net - a website for community planning. · Worked collaboratively with PAS and IDeA to finance Urban Renaissance - a programme for local authority officers and members aimed at improving each others understanding of their role in the planning process, including how to engage with developers and the community. · Developed a Masterclass programme with TCPA addressing the skills needs of multi disciplinary teams. · Piloted with RCEs in the South East and East Midlands workshops targeted at practitioners and community leaders to debate and action plan delivery on growth areas. · Developed a pilot with Kirklees Council and partners "Planning for non planners" - delivery planned for June 2008. · Produced a guide detailing how to engage with multi cultural groups and communities to support the planning process through improved community engagement. This has been distributed to at least 300 authorities and we continue to get requests for this. · Undertaken a project together with Blackburn with Darwen Borough Council and English Partnerships (EP) which brought together private and public sector partners to develop an inclusive community engagement strategy for the development of the town centre and surrounding areas which included the integration of cohesion objectives in the procurement process.
Homes and Communities Agency
15. ASC welcomes the formation of the HCA which will become operational on or before 1st April 2009. ASC will become part of the HCA and our priorities will inevitably shift in order to support its strategic objectives. The move will provide the opportunity to join up common skills agendas with Atlas, currently part of EP. We envisage working hand in hand with Atlas. This will go some way to facilitating the 'one stop shop' approach HCA is aiming for with local authorities and will address the needs of these stakeholders in a more coordinated way.
16. More widely, ASC sees the benefits in moving into the HCA in terms of increasing ASC's leverage and influence in sectors such as local government and contractors. This leverage is critical; ASC is a small organisation with limited resources, operating in the face of growing skills and capacity gaps. The way ASC maximises its impact is via leverage over others.
17. It is not yet clear what form ASC will take within HCA and discussions are ongoing to determine the relationship. The options range from a subsidiary company limited by guarantee to a fully embedded programme. Each approach has its own advantages and disadvantages. In a recent consultation exercise looking at the options for ASC going into HCA, ASC stakeholders expressed the view that they want to see ASC continuing as an independently branded entity operating with a degree of independence within the HCA and felt that this would continue to give skills and capacity building a clear focus.
18. The way in which ASC will work with the strong regional offices of the HCA needs mapping out over the coming months. Establishing a robust regional delivery model is a key priority for ASC. We currently work with Regional Centres of Excellence (RCEs) and other partners to deliver at the regional and local level. Variations in capacity across the RCE network and the withdrawal of core funding from some RDAs to their RCEs does not allow for consistency of delivery capability across the regions.
19. Over the coming period, ASC will be commissioning work with partners to look at how best to develop robust regional delivery mechanisms for skills and capacity building for sustainable communities. This will examine (i) the resources available for building skills and capacity across the sector set against the scale of the skills shortages and the risk involved to delivery if the workforce is not upskilled (ii) how best government resources from capacity building funds can be directed towards this agenda (iii) the potential for consolidating skills and capacity building provision under a single brand in order to remove confusion from the market place and achieve economies of scale and clarity of purpose and impact and (iv) what delivery structures should look like in the future.
The Evidence: Skills Shortages in the Sustainable Communities Sector
20. The 2005 Labour Force Survey data suggests that the sustainable communities sector workforce consists of some 750,000 employees, this figure has grown significantly over the past few years and now amounts to approximately 3.2% of the total workforce of England[1]. This is a significant proportion compared to other professional groups. Engineers make up the largest proportion of the workforce with 26% of the total followed by neighbourhood workers (16%), developers and surveys (12%) and planners (2%).
21. 'Mind the Skills Gap' confirmed that there are significant and growing generic and technical skills gaps nationwide with a 'missing generation' of key professionals in the mid 30's to mid 40's age range due to a dip in the numbers entering the profession in the early 1990s. It highlighted the lack of leadership and generic skills and emphasised the gap in specialist knowledge areas e.g. low carbon and cohesion. It concluded that we face a significant shortage of qualified practitioners with the skills to deliver between now and 2012[2].
Skills Deficits across the sector
22. These shortages and skills deficits, if not addressed, will hamper the delivery of the sustainable communities agenda. The ambitious targets for new homes, for regeneration in growth areas, growth points and eco towns, as well as increased economic prosperity as a whole, mean that people with the right skills, knowledge and leadership capability will be in high demand. Indeed, success will depend significantly on the capacity of local and regional delivery partners. Key findings included:
· Sustainable communities workforce accounts for 3.2% of England's workforce as a whole. · There has been significant growth in the workforce but experience and forecasts suggest a significant shortfall in supply of suitably qualified professionals. · Organisations expect to have particular difficulties recruiting landscape architects, urban designers and planners, particularly in the public sector.
23. The Mind the Skills Gap report involved undertaking a survey of 146 organisations and 763 individuals, involved in the delivery of sustainable communities, as well as case study audits of specific sustainable community organisations and specific projects to establish their workloads, and a modelling exercise to provide forecasts of the current and future scale of gaps in labour supply. Gap forecasts were modelled before the CSR07 settlement and the full implications of the Housing Green Paper were appreciated. ASC has commissioned a further piece of work, in which the model will be re-run to take into account these two factors. Early indications are that the overall skills and labour shortages will increase further. The revised research results will be available by May 2008.
24. The table below shows the shortages by occupation and the top three skills gaps affecting each occupation:
Source: Mind the Skills Gap, 2007
Evidence of Skills Gaps and Labour Shortages for Planners
25. Recent evidence suggests that there are now some 17,000 planners within local government planning departments. Evidence from York Consulting[3] indicates that the proportions of public and private sector planners are approximately the same, suggesting that there are more than 30,000 working in planning in England.
26. With expected increases in public spending (not including the housing green paper) the labour shortage in the planning profession is forecast to increase to 46% by 2012 if no action is taken to resolve the skills gap[4]. This number may well increase when the model is re-run. ASC will be able to provide an update on this in May 2008. The table below shows the current year on year forecasted gaps from the Mind the Skills Gap research:
Source: Mind the Skills Gap, 2007
(A full analysis of the skills and labour shortages of planners from the Mind the Skills Gap research can be found at Annex A).
27. In addition to the absolute shortage of planners, some 10% of organisations surveyed identified the need for planners to improve their technical skills. Compared to other professions this was relatively high. Of those individuals surveyed, 30% identified knowledge of relevant procedures and 50% identified specialist areas as requiring improvement. Specialist areas included development appraisal skills (necessary to inform negotiations on affordable housing and S106 agreements, etc), climate change 'mitigation' and 'adaptation' and others related to the use of evidence-based approaches to forward planning.
28. Deficits in technical skills gaps are closely related to those in generic skills gaps, for example, in negotiation with developers and stakeholder engagement. Evidence in the report suggested that planners would be more confident in negotiations if their underlying technical skills were better.
29. The planning system and planners have received increasing attention in recent years with the acknowledgement of the importance of planning in delivering a range of policy objectives, from the provision of housing to mitigating and adapting to climate change. The lack of resources faced by the sector, alongside the diminution of professional status, the need for culture change, and sometimes individual and organisation demoralisation have also been widely recognised.
30. 'Mind the Skills Gap' highlighted financial management skills as a key area of weakness, this reinforced a survey conducted by the RTPI (2005) as an area where skills were significantly lacking[5]. Other areas of weakness include analysis, decision-making, evaluation and inclusive visioning as well as staff appraisal and change management. Both surveys identified commitment amongst planners to developing their project and financial management skills. The significance of these gaps is clear, generic skills are as important as technical skills. When individuals were asked which professions with generic skills should be employed more in their organisation, planners were ranked third[6]. In the Audit Commission's report on planning, stakeholders questioned 'the ability of planners to communicate, negotiate and lead' and also stated that there was difficulty in resolving conflicting issues and balancing trade-offs[7].
31. Regional analysis of labour shortages and skills gaps formed part of the MSG study. This included modelling that forecasted labour shortages by profession. Please see the full report for further details. The analysis highlighted planning shortages were growing at a faster than the national average in most regions. The table below illustrates this point:
Forecast labour shortages in Planning by region
Source: Mind the Skills Gap, 2007
32. The evidence points to an absolute shortage of planners in coming years as well as to shortages in technical, specialist and generic skills across professionals working in both the public and private sectors. Forecasts suggest that these skills and labour shortage gaps will widen. It is important that planners get the technical skills required to do their jobs properly but it is equally important that they have the generic skills to enable them to work in multidisciplinary teams across sectors.
33. The 'Mind the Skills Gap' research built on work ASC commissioned from York Consulting in 2006 which was based on the existing literature and evidence base. This report drew attention to the difficulties faced by the public sector in recruiting. It reported for example that some 93% of pubic sector organisations reported some difficulty in recruitment particularly in planning, and cited the Local Government Pay and Workforce Strategy Survey 2006 as key evidence. Over half (55%) of local authorities surveyed said that they faced recruitment difficulties for Planning Development Control managers and professionals (50% for other managerial and professional roles in planning), with over one third offering marketing supplements as an inducement to successful candidates. The table below shows these recruitment and retention difficulties. These are some of the highest rates among built environment occupations. Similarly, retention issues also scored highly, with one third of authorities saying that they faced retention problems within Planning Development Control (28% for other planning roles).
34. Recruitment and retention difficulties
*% of local authorities managers and professional posts only (Source: Local Government Pay and Workforce Strategy Survey 2006)
35. Since MSG, ASC has developed a Brownfield skills strategy on behalf of English Partnerships. Consultation on the strategy will be launched on 4th March 2008 and copies will be available from ASC's website thereafter. Responses to the Brownfield scoping consultation confirmed that shortages in the profession were already causing problems. Local authorities reported high staff turn over, competition between the public and private sectors for experienced staff and poor quality technical reports putting undue pressure on planning staff to meet published turnaround times. The strategy supports the growing gaps in technical, specialist and generic skills highlighted in MSG.
36. ASC recognises the importance of providing support for local authorities and elected members within the sustainable communities context. As the recent IDeA report (2008) on local government performance states, elected members will 'increasingly need to be able to communicate a clear vision and influence and inspire partners to work towards it'. This has come about as local politicians have become more involved in place shaping, however, many 'are not yet equipped to make the most of the current agenda and self improvement, peer learning, support and organisational development will all play a part in enabling this to happen'.
37. The Mind the Skills Gap research also examined transport planners, who perform an associated but different role from town planners. Transport planners are concerned with the provision and management of a sustainable transport infrastructure, at a national, regional and local level. There is also a very wide range of areas from highway designers through to regional land use and transport modelling.
38. Forecasts of future skills gaps, relative to the current position, suggest an increasing shortage of transport planners available. The skills gap, in the absence of appropriate action, is forecast to increase to over 10 percent by 2012. Over 10 percent of organisational respondents to the survey anticipated shortages in this area.
39. Amongst sustainable communities professionals, individual transport planners and organisations are relatively confident regarding the level of technical skills in this area. Transport planners are also relatively confident about the level of their generic skills. In common with those across the sector, financial, project and change management are most likely to be identified as areas requiring improvement. There is some evidence that transport planners are not always as engaged in the sustainable communities agenda as they could be.
Resources
40. Over the next 3 years ASC expects to receive core funding of £5.5m per annum from CLG as part of the CSR 07 settlement. These resources are clearly limited given the scale of the current and projected future challenges. In order to maximise our resources in the future ASC will be targeting a proportion of its resources spatially into areas undergoing the greatest transformation and with significant problems in delivering change. ASC also intends to devote fewer of its resources over the coming years to careers focused work and more to working on the skills needs of those currently working in the sustainable communities sector and those who work with communities, especially elected members.
ASC's Future Work Priorities
41. In response to the key recommendation of MSG, ASC is leading a coordinated response to the skills challenges facing the sector by agreeing a sector wide skills action plan, bringing partners and stakeholders together to deliver skills for sustainable communities. A major element of this work involves influencing partners to deliver against the skills agenda and monitoring progress towards closing the gap in generic, specialist and technical skills. In addition to the action plan, specific work programmes will be targeted at building skills and capacity across the sector.
42. ASC will continue to encourage cross professional and cross sector learning. ASC will accelerate the roll out of programmes and courses and develop new ones to meet market need. This will include influencing the professional institutes to promote master classes and adopt CPD modules. The following programmes will be rolled out:
· Raising Our Game Certificate in Leading Sustainable Communities. · Certificate in Creating Sustainable Communities. · An online self-applied and self-analysing diagnostic tool to help assess and address sustainable communities skills gaps. The tool, aimed at sustainable community professionals and practitioners in the private and public sectors, will help individuals and organisations recognise generic skills gaps and provide advice on how to bridge them.
43. ASC will promote leadership as a core theme in future. We will: · Develop a "Leadership of Place" programme to build the capacity of both existing and future leaders in the public, private and community sectors involved in delivering sustainable communities. This will include developing a new model of leadership tailored to the sustainable communities context. We will roll out our "Taking the Lead" programme and continue to provide support and development to leaders through our Leaders' Network.
44. ASC will aim to encourage more people to enter career pathways into the sector through: · The delivery of the Foundation Degree in Sustainable Communities (one pilot delivered at Sheffield Hallam University with another planned for 2008/09). · Managing the "Ask:WhatIf?" careers website to promote careers in the sustainable communities sector. · Continuing to work with the professional institutes to encourage a joined up approach to training, CPD and career pathways.
45. ASC will also support key specialist and technical skills development:
· The Brownfield skills strategy to help deliver the government's housing targets is on course to begin rolling out skills programmes next year. The strategy's key recommendation was for ASC to take the lead on the development of a Town Planning, Land Contamination and Public Health Skills Development Framework for local authorities and other public sector bodies involved in the reuse of Brownfield land. This work will be delivered against the conclusions of the report Future Planners: Propositions for the next age of Planning (February 2007 DEMOS) which looks at the evolving role of planners in wider place making and the new approaches, skills set and competencies that implies. Once developed, the Skills Development Framework will be trialled by those local authorities developing Local Brownfield Strategies through the support of English Partnerships. Ultimately, we would like to see it being adopted across the sector as a whole.
· As a result of the need for information on climate change mitigation and adaptation, ASC has developed an online resource specifically for the sustainable communities sector. Information includes key facts and figures, and frequently asked questions and answers to key issues in this complex subject. The information resource also provides signposts to further, more detailed information resources to enable users to develop their knowledge independently. This will be rolled out from April 2008 onwards.
· In response to the needs of sustainable communities professionals for specific technical skills, ASC has also developed an evidence based learning resource which can be used by sustainable communities professionals to enable them to understand the concept of community cohesion and the critical steps that can help them address this challenge. We are working with CLG to see how this can be rolled out in the context of their new Regeneration Framework and the Department's community empowerment work.
Conclusions 46. The Planning Inquiry comes at a crucial time. Planners are facing demands to do more: to meet the Government's housing and environmental ambitions; to respond to the desires and aspirations of communities for better places and spaces to live, work and play; and to satisfy the needs of the economy for places and an infrastructure supportive to business. Increasingly, this includes tackling the complexity inherent in bringing Brownfield land back into use. However, as this submission has illustrated, there is strong evidence - despite the efforts of Government and a range of stakeholders - of both a current shortage of planners and of severe, potentially acute, shortages further down the line.
47. As we have explained, the introduction of ASC's new Foundation Degree in Sustainable Communities will help, as will our work to encourage more young people to consider a career in sustainable communities occupations. But these are new initiatives and will not tackle the immediate pressures facing the sector. Moreover, the size of the task appears to be getting larger rather than smaller since, taking the new Government housing targets into account, the deficit in planners could be as great as 80% by 2012. That's not to say that simply expanding the number of students studying planning will tackle the problem. ASC has established that the days of the traditional, old style planner are well and truly numbered. For the 21st century they must have a wider skills-set of core and generic skills, including programme and project management and risk assessment; competence with legal and policy issues e.g. relating to the reuse of Brownfield land; health and safety issues; data and information management skills; financial control; sustainable development; communication skills - including negotiation, mediation and brokering, especially when working with developers and with local communities.
48. ASC's new generic module for Higher Education institutions and our cross disciplinary professional development programmes are playing a part in developing the practitioners of the future. But more needs to be done. In particular, there needs to be greater national co-ordination and coherence in the approach adopted to developing the workforce of the future, with buy in from all stakeholders to developing the wider skills-sets that the modern role requires, and a willingness to work together to address the issues head on.
49. As part of the drive to develop a wider understanding of the role of planners within sustainable communities, it will be essential to provide development opportunities for elected members. These will ensure that they can play a full part in implementing and supporting planners in their work, including helping their constituents to get the best out of planning system.
GILL TAYLOR
ACADEMY FOR SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITIES Annex A
Chapter 5 Mind the Skills Gap Skills shortages and Labour Supply in Town Planners
5.1 Overview
The planning system and planners have received increasing attention in recent years, with the acknowledgement of the importance of planning in the delivery of policy objectives, ranging from housing to mitigating and adapting to climate change. As several recent reports have suggested the lack of resources faced by the sector - alongside the diminution of professional status, need for culture change and sometimes individual and organisation demoralisation - is widely recognised10. As a result, there have been concerted efforts to reform the planning system and achieve culture change as well as to increase resources to enable planners to perform better and meet current challenges. Initiated by the Government, student bursaries and more places in planning schools have boosted supply to some extent, as have new organisations such as the Planning Advisory Service alongside Best Value performance regimes. The RTPI, the professional institute for planners, has also made progress in modernising planners' education with the introduction of one-year master's courses, particularly as the emphasis has shifted towards postgraduate training which is the clear preference for training of our case study organisations. However, evidence suggests that the number of people working in planning without RTPI membership has been increasing, partly because of a decline in accredited planning courses in the early 2000s.
5.2 Labour market issues
In 2004, approximately 14,000 individuals were active members of RTPI, and recent evidence from surveys11 suggests that there are now over 17,000 planners within local government planning departments. York Consulting estimated from Construction Industry Council and ODPM skills surveys that approximately 7,000 are estimated to work in the private sector and 7,500 are estimated to work in the public sector in the UK.
If the emerging figures on the numbers of planners in the public sector are accurate, and the proportions of public and private sector planners are approximately the same as that identified by York Consulting, there could also be over 16,000 working in planning roles within the private sector, equating to a total of more than 30,000 persons working in planning. Current estimates from LFS data suggest that approximately 12,000 individuals worked in the planning profession. However, when compared with the figures suggested above, this figure appears too low and suggests that additional planners may be contained in the LFS category of architectural technologists and town planning technicians. Evidence from a number of sources suggests that the current supply of planning professionals do not meet demand. There are significant recruitment and retention difficulties across the sector. This is true of both public and private sector organisations. For example, the Local Government and Workforce Strategy Survey 2006 showed that over half the local authorities surveyed said they faced recruitment difficulties for managing and professional posts in planning, and 26% of those surveyed offered market supplements. Local Government Association research in 2004 suggests that, as a result, turnover is relatively high and there are a considerable number of vacant posts. Labour shortages are reflected in results of the online survey. 30% of respondents, from both private and public sector organisations, thought their organisations should employ more planners. There are also indications that there is a shortage at middle management level due to a dip in the numbers entering the profession in the early 1990s.
The 2001 RTPI membership showed a much smaller percentage of professionals in the 21-30 age bracket; a dip which would now exist in the mid-30s age range assuming no mid-career entrants. This is certainly the case in London, as reported by London councils in 2005 and is reflected in responses to the organisational survey. These labour shortages appear to be particularly acute in the area of development control. This was noted as a particular area of recruitment difficulty in the returns to the Local Government and Workforce Strategy Survey 2006 and is reflected in responses to the online survey, typical of which is: "Development control expertise (for strategic planning proposals and LDF conformity) is a particular problem." However, there is also increasing qualitative evidence of shortage of forward planners. This reflects the low levels of forward planning taking place from the late 1990s until the introduction of the new system of Local Development Framework in 2004/5. Indeed, many of the labour shortages in forward planning are reflected in comments relating to getting a better understanding of LDFs and the national policy framework.
5.3 Forecast gaps in labour market
When spending-based demand trajectories are compared to supply trends, the labour shortage in the planning profession is forecast to increase to 46% over the long-term to 2012.
Despite efforts to enhance supply there is limited evidence of a marked increase as yet in the supply of planners. LFS data shows an increase year by year from 2001 to 2004 but a fall in 2005 resulted in no appreciable growth in numbers over the period.
Recent surveys conducted for Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) 12 as part of work on planning costs and fees suggests that, as at September 2006, planning authorities have on average 29 posts in development control, of which an average four were vacant. Non-development control staff working on forward planning comprised an average 20 staff, of which two were vacant. Analysis of the vacancies suggests that the majority of vacancies are for experienced professional case officers. In addition to vacancies, planning authorities are also using temporary staff; indeed the DCLG[8] survey suggests that 8% of development control staff are temporary and that these temporary staff are strongly concentrated in the South East and London. With an overall shortage of planners, particularly experienced planners and those with specialist skills, training and initiatives such as 'grow your own staff' schemes have taken on increasing significance. The majority of planning authorities now have a dedicated training budget (87%) a higher proportion than in the past - in 2004/5 the figure was 78%.
The 2004 Evidence Base Review notes a long-term decline in the rate of increase in RTPI membership, and student numbers remained lower in 2003 than they were in the early 1990s. Recent HESA data reflects a modest upsurge in the numbers involved in planning courses. However, there is only a small reduction in the predicted shortage once a sensitivity test is run allowing for growth in student numbers. Given that the current situation in public planning arises from under-resourcing, establishing an appropriate and long-term resource position is vital to achieving a sustainable service with career structures that will deliver a supply of experienced planners in the long-term. Although absolute employment numbers collected must be treated with care, survey results show a relatively modest increase in the numbers of planners recruited in recent years. Estimates of future recruitment requirements are also relatively modest. Nonetheless, this occupation was identified above any other as an area of anticipated shortage.
5.4 Technical skills gaps
Planners are identified by approximately 10% of organisations surveyed as requiring improvement in their technical skills, a relatively high proportion compared to other professions. Of those individuals surveyed, up to 30% identify knowledge of relevant procedures and up to 50% identify specialist areas as requiring improvement. Specialist areas include development appraisal skills (necessary to inform negotiations on affordable housing and S106 agreements, etc), climate change mitigation and adaptation and the use of evidence-based approaches to forward planning.
As implied above, many of the technical skills gaps are also closely related to generic skills gaps, for example, in relation to negotiation with developers and stakeholder engagement. Also, planners would feel more confident in negotiations if their underlying technical skills were better. Many planners in the individual survey suggested that generic skills were often gained through experience and that further training in technical skills is required.
5.5 Generic skills gaps
Financial management skills were identified in the online survey and in the RTPI survey - conducted in the wake of Egan - by planners as an area where skills were significantly lacking. Other areas of weakness include analysis, decision-making, evaluation and inclusive visioning as well as staff appraisal and change management. Both surveys identified commitment amongst planners to developing their project and financial management skills. The significance of these gaps is difficult to determine, although it should be noted that when individuals were asked which professions with generic skills should be employed more in their organisation, planners were ranked third. This suggests that not only are generic skills essential but current gaps may be hindering delivery. Nonetheless, individuals working within the profession may not always have an accurate view of strengths and weaknesses. In the Audit Commission's report on planning, stakeholders questioned 'the ability of planners to communicate, negotiate and lead' and also stated that there was difficulty in resolving conflicting issues and balancing trade-offs.
[1] Includes those architects, landscape architects, urban designers, surveyors, developers, regeneration/economic development officers, community development officers, engineers, environmental specialists, planners, transport planners and housing and welfare officers involved in the delivery of sustainable communities. This is based on LFS data from 2005. [2] Mind the Skills Gap ASC 2007. Further research has been commissioned to quantify the additional impact on this picture of the Housing Green Paper (2007) and the effect of the CSR 07 settlement. [3] Academy for Sustainable Communities Gap Analysis for Sustainable Communities Professionals (York Consulting, 2007) [4] The forecast model for Mind the Skills gap predicts the scale of labour shortages to 2012 across England by region and by profession. The model is structured around a supply forecast and a demand forecast from 2006 onwards. The forecasts are based on assumptions based on the Labour Force Survey, online surveys (which formed part of the MSG evidence base) and public sector expenditure plans. [5] A Survey of Discipline Knowledge and Generic Skills of RTPI Corporate Members (RTPI, 2005). [6] Mind the Skills Gap, 2007. [7] The Planning System - Matching Expectations and Realities (Audit Commission, 2006) [8] DCLG Fees Consultation, 2007.
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