Chief planner

More than a quarter of Local Planning Authorities (LPAs) that responded to our State of the Profession 2025 survey stated that their authority does not have a Chief Planning Officer in place to oversee planning operations. Chief Planning Officers are a critical part of the democratic process, being best placed to provide impartial professional advice to elected members and build the critical relationships necessary for smooth local decision-making and democracy. 

Proposals from Government for a new national scheme of delegation places Chief Planning Officers as integral to decision-making on delegation alongside Planning Committee conveners.  

The RTPI believes it is important that local authorities have a clear planning structure and that the Chief Planning Officer be empowered to manage resource and training needs across planning functions. 

Throughout the devolution process, it will be essential for planning departments to have a Chief Planning Officer overseeing and connecting through management structures, both development management and development planning functions. When these functions are split, there have been well documented impacts upon performance.  

The impending programme of devolution and local government reform will likely create larger teams covering larger geographies and co-operating with newly emerging strategic authorities, therefore the existing need to see strong leadership in the planning system will be magnified. There is also a need for local planning authorities to have an organised and meaningful input into the production of SDSs and the chief planner role will be critical in ensuring this happens. The Chief Planning Officer role is key in brokering internal and external stakeholder relationships. This is particularly the case in being a link with the development industry, as well as internally with elected members and local authority stakeholders.

A new clause on the Chief Planner should be inserted after Clause 37, to provide that local planning authorities and strategic authorities must appoint a chief planner.