A recent Planning Advisory Service workshop discussed future challenges and opportunities facing planners.

"The future is a challenge, and planners must step up to meet it’ - this was the call from Peter Lerner MRTPI, a previous Chief Executive turned management consultant, who led the workshop.

Peter warned that planners who ignore the future local government agenda do so ‘at their peril’. Planners are best placed to champion planning within their Council, and ensure its strategic role is fully understood.

The workshop challenged planners to earn their place at their Council’s top decision-making tables, alongside the Chief Executive and Leader. Planners already know how to consult, and balance strongly-felt issues. The pace of change in Local Government, competition for ever diminishing resources, and demanding national agendas will test planner’s skills to the full.

• Councils will need to prioritise, and increase their focus on outcomes.
• Councils will need to improve and provide better value for money. The views and experiences of communities and neighbourhoods will be important when evaluating the performance of the planning service.

It is vital that planning is both seen and used as a way to deliver corporate objectives. Planners must rise to the challenge and not quietly get on with their work, they must champion planning within their own Council.

Senior planners – ask yourself the following;

• Are you one of your Council’s top strategic decision makers? If not, why is that? What can you do to demonstrate the strategic value of the planning service?
• Things are not going to stay the same for planning over the next five years. What are the likely changes? How will you prepare your Service?
• How much consideration have you given to the resources you need to provide a excellent planning service, measured against your Council and community priorities for all public services?
• What do you think planners should bring to the top table to ensure that they remain at the heart of local decision making?

How to meet the future Local Government agenda - planners should:

• Look for possible leadership and priority changes that arise from pre-local election campaigning, as this will help identify new political priorities.
• Apply the same approach to general elections, and new government policies and initiatives. Advise, through meetings or briefing notes, Chief Execs and Planning portfolio holders on possible national changes proposed by different parties.
• Ensure that you have the latest information regarding income budgets. The recession led to a reduction in planning applications, how has this affected income? Can you balance the books by charging for some pre-application advice? Are there other income streams to develop? Have you sought advice from the Council’s accounts team?
• Think about how the planning service has been involved corporately with efficiency measures and cost savings. Take ownership of this process and plan ahead.
• Contribute corporately, it is vital that there are positive working relationships between all levels in development management and policy teams.
• Planners should read local government publications, such as Municipal Journal and Local Government Chronicle, to help better understand the new local authority agenda and planning’s potential to support and deliver.

Positive Planning

• Planners make places better for people, but you must ensure you engage with your Council and influence their understanding of planning. Ask yourself how does your Chief Executive feel about planning?  What can you do to challenge any negative views and perceptions of the planning service?
• Planners at all levels should ask themselves ‘what is our planning service doing to improve our image within the Council, and to the public? Always consider the applicants point of view. Organise developer/user forums to seek their involvement in service improvements.
• Challenge all stereotypical assumptions made by the public by improving their experience of the planning system. Thirty years ago few reacted to planning, now there are massive amounts of interaction, with individuals directing concerns to Chief Executives and Council Leaders. The public are more informed and more likely to engage with Councils when they are dissatisfied with the planning service.
• There is a wider public concern, driven by the media, over pay and conditions in the public sector. This can lead to a feeling that local government employees are over paid and ‘don’t do proper jobs’. Help the public understand the value in what you do and how you can respond positively to their concerns.
• Customer contact centres must deliver a quality service. If your new contact centre is not as good as the original planning reception then find out why and see what you can do to help fix it!
• Planners are in the best position to understand communities. The planning service can work flexibly when pulling together information to help better understand what drives communities and neighbourhoods. This includes local historical knowledge, and practical knowledge gained through site visits.
• Planners are good at project management, ensuring that development happens through consultation.
• The Vanguard Systems Thinking process is seen by some as a threat, but it isn’t. Why is it that some Council’s take as much as three weeks to register an application? This is time that could be better spent elsewhere. It is by looking at these simple issues that efficiencies in processes can be identified.

Reducing budgets

We are entering an era where Council management teams will question what is important and prioritise services and resources accordingly. Chief Executives will not want to see any overspend in any department. Some Council functions, such as Children and Adult Services, have a much stronger defence when faced with budget reductions. These services attract a high profile in the media. Planning is not in as strong a position - to put it bluntly, peoples lives are not at risk.

Efficiency savings (otherwise known as cuts) involve a number of options, including;

• Reduce staff hours (or numbers)
• Holding vacancies open for a number of months before recruiting to help save money.
• Introducing more efficient ways of working – getting more with less.
• Working jointly with neighbouring authorities

Looking at departmental structures does not always solve the issue. Some may take the view that this helps reduce ‘dead wood’, but in reality how much of this is still within Councils?

Reducing non-statutory functions may be a consideration for some, but this can have a highly visible impact on enforcement, conservation and tree considerations. Any reduction in these areas can lead to an increased negative view of planning services by the public and councillors.

Total Place

The ‘total place’ approach challenges us to think from the public point of view. Why is it that Council services are provided from different sources that often do not communicate with each other? Local Authority boundaries do not necessarily make any sense from a practical point of view. The idea of Councils sharing resources forms part of this thinking.

Future career opportunities

For ambitious planners the ‘shared resource agenda’ will reduce the number of senior positions available. To counter this planners will need to demonstrate their positive, flexible and adaptable thinking, and develop wider management skills.

Management training is important, but training does not necessarily have to focuses on planning and planning services. Read what you can on the subject, consider secondments outside of the service, becoming an Improvement and Development Agency planning peer and other opportunities to expose yourselves to wider management experience. Remember, all leadership and management training can be helpful, even when outside of the profession.

“The place at the management table is yours” enthused Peter, “but you must earn it!”

• Facing the Future was a series of events by the Planning Advisory Service during 2010. For further reading visit: Planning Advisory Service.
• The views expressed in this article are not necessarily those of the Planning Advisory Service or the RTPI
• Peter Lerner Consultancy can be contacted at peter@plerner1.demon.co.uk.

Author:

Chris Sheridan

Publisher:

The Royal Town Planning Institute

Date:

12-Jun-10

Categories:

Planners in the Workplace, Planning as a Career 

Sections:

Member Services

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