Social enterprise group Public Practice has been handed £1m by ministers to help recruit more planners into local authorities.
The funds will also be used to further develop skilled planners, increase awareness about careers in local government and share best practice around improving communities in the public sector.
Housing and planning minister Rachel Maclean said: “Planning plays such an important role in shaping our neighbourhoods, making sure we have the right housing and infrastructure to level up the nation.
“It is essential that our planning authorities have the skills and resources they need and today’s funding will make sure the sector is better equipped to deliver a quality service for local communities.”
Government funding for local authorities is currently set at £16.3bn – between 30-50% less for each authority than in 2015.
Pooja Agrawal, chief executive of Public Practice, said: “Planning and placemaking is one of local government’s most important functions as it shapes the places we all live in, work and visit.
“However, it is clear local authorities have substantial skills gaps which hinders the ability of developers and councils to deliver good-quality new and refurbished homes, sustainable public spaces or accessible town centres and high streets.”
The expansion will allow Public Practice to work with councils in the Midlands and the South West for the first time and comes six months after its first cohort began working with councils in the North West, North East and Yorkshire.
Agrawal said she was “grateful for the funding” but added “now is not the time to rest on our laurels but to redouble our efforts”.
Rob Perrins, chief executive of Berkeley Group, said: “We are deeply concerned about the capacity and skills challenges faced by local authorities. We need to make the planning system much more efficient, especially on brownfield regeneration sites. That’s why we’re delighted Public Practice continues to grow and support the high-quality planning and placemaking services our town and cities need.”
“We have a mission to help every council in England to find the skilled planners and place professionals they need to make communities and neighbourhoods better across our nation.”
The government recently published a consultation on increases to planning fees, with the intention that additional funds would be used to improve the planning service. This is alongside a wider programme to digitise the service.
Public Practice has attracted more than 2,500 applications to its placement programme over the past five years, 92% of whom have been working outside the public sector. Some 73% of applicants have never worked in the public sector and 53% have never previously applied for a job in the public sector.
Some 90% of Public Practice associates have chosen to continue working in the public sector following the conclusion of the year-long programme.
Dentons partner Roy Pinnock said the programme would help plug the skills gap that was threatening to choke the UK.
He said: “The single most urgent priority for planning in England is the skills and capacity gap afflicting local authorities. Compared with the average European country, Britain has a backlog of more than 4m homes that are missing from the national housing market as they were never built.
“We need to build 340,000 new homes a year in England until 2031 to meet our needs, including 145,000 new affordable homes.
“If the skills and capacity gap within councils is not sorted developers cannot build the homes which people in Britain need, nor the low-carbon industrial and office buildings we require.”
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