A summary of the results of the planning department resources survey PAS did in the S[pring of 2019.

1. Resources Survey 2019
Summary of findings
Richard Crawley
August 2019 www.local.gov.uk/pas

2. Base report
1. Recap
2. Who took part ?
3. Planning and your council
4. Spending the additional fee
5. Fees generally
6. Team size and composition
7. Recruitment
8. Skills

3. Recap
 Survey was to understand two things
 the impact of the recent 20% fee increase
 what longer term resource pressure remains

4. Who took part ?
 123 surveys returned
out of a possible 357
 Excellent coverage of
the different types of
LPA

5. Planning and your council
How well is planning represented at your council ?
What is the job title of the most senior planner ?
How useful was the ring fence ?

8. How helpful ?
 It highlighted the FD that there was additional income to
come in
 Although the money was ring-fenced, there were no
additional resources as a result of the fee increase
 Overall this was helpful to protect the monies for planning
only. Main isuse was we have been below the projected
budget for 18-19 and therefore in reality the 20% fee
increase has just made up the shortfall in fee revenue
 need Govt support to maintain our control over the ‘ring
fenced’ 20%. It is always under attack from corporate
centre particularly when brining in £1.2m income this year

9. Qualitative questions
In addition to the number-crunching, we asked two
open questions:
G09 (Resources, Recruitment, Retention)
… your thoughts on your longer term recruitment and
retention issues… your worries and what might be done to provide
solutions ?
G10 (Quality)
Monitoring quality (service and outcomes) beyond national indicators…
not easy to monitor and control. Do you do anything particularly
well/innovative?

10. Resources - issues
 Resilient and successful councils are surviving (not
thriving)
 Capacity (skills & experience) as big an issue as resources
(bums on seats)
 Public Sector Planning – (not) valued / an attractive career
 Competing with private sector in a small pool /
‘cannibalisation’ (e.g. HE/PINS) and in London
 Agencies plug gaps, at a cost (£ and quality)
 More retiring than entering the profession
 Fees (heavily subsidised); ring-fencing matched by budget
reductions

11. Resources - solutions
 “Growing their own” planners (grad/apprentice
schemes)
 Fast-tracking experience - risk-based approaches
 Recruiting outside the planning discipline
 Paying more; market supplements / career grades
 Sharing resources
 Maximising discretionary income

12. Quality
 Still largely understood as speed, appeals, building design
 Mostly seen from the council’s perspective (improvement
work normally focused on making OUR lives easier, and
demonstrating WE added value)
 Emerging sense that quality is also about the ‘customer
experience’ – very few, but very good examples

17. Fee Income
 How did fees received change ?
 What sort of fees are received ?
 Did every council see an increase ?

18. Fees up £10.2m = 12.1%

19. But not everywhere

20. 25 LPAs saw income decrease

25. Planning teams
 How many people do each task* ?
 Are they directly employed ?
* Note that some LPAs submitted DM only data, so
policy is under counted

35. How are posts filled ?
vacant_l = long-term vacant
vacant_s = short-term vacant

36. Less variation regionally

37. Recruitment
 How much recruitment is there ?
 How much of it is successful ?
 Are there hotspots ?

38. Note that churn is
measured over two
years - not annually

39. Green is total recruitment; Red is fail
Posts recruited

41. Skills*
 Which inputs really matter ?
 Who provides them ?
 How tricky are they to find now ?
 What is going to get trickier ?
*note that districts out-number other sorts of LPAs, so these results are
skewed towards their views

45. Top 10 worries for the future

46. Which categories will worsen* ?
* Subtract current difficulty from future difficulty

47. Reflections
 Lots here
 Autumn events to share, discuss
 Don't do surveys at year-end, especially if they
have financial questions
 Refine guide, and acknowledge grey areas
 Many thanks to everyone who took part
 bespoke reports going out in September

48. We are at local.gov.uk/pas

49. Email pas@local.gov.uk
Web www.local.gov.uk/pas
Phone 020 7664 3000
Twitter @Pas_Team