Money Troubles: DLUHC, Local Government Resources and Planning
Every now and again, a consultation comes along that has the ability to genuinely change things for the better. DLUHC's consultation on increasing planning fees is one of them.
Of late, It seems hard to avoid stories highlighting just how precarious our system of local government - and by extension our planning system - actually is.
In just the last two weeks, we have seen:
- DLUHC announce the provision of emergency funding for ten local authorities including Slough, Thurrock, Croydon and Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole;
- A Councillor resign their position on the Planning Committee of their LPA in part over concerns that "Staff turnover is appallingly high in planning and resourcing is thin. [The enforcement team] are not dealing with prominent infringements of planning approvals - or lack thereof - because it is severely under-resourced."
- News that Croydon has introduced a plan to transform its planning service, and kick-start its local plan process, after a review found that “financial constraint, changing working practices as a result of the significant period of lockdown, an increase in planning applications during the lockdown period and a nationwide shortage of qualified and experienced planning staff, …had a significant impact on the service”;
- PINS reporting the highest appeal decision times we have seen in the last twelve months - with the median time between validation and decision being 31.1 weeks in January 2023, compared with a median figure for the past 12 months of 27.6 weeks; and
- A steady drip of news about delayed, deferred or withdrawn local plans.
According to the submissions to the latest Fifty Shades of Planning's 'Life on the Front Line' blog post; a lack of investment and resourcing in local planning authorities also appears to be severely affecting morale within local planning departments and contributing to a flight of talent to the private sector.
Local planning authorities are continually being asked to do more with less, and to respond to (and keep up with) a policy environment that changes so frequently that I genuinely get paranoid every time I try to book a holiday*...
LURB is about to fundamentally reshape the local plan process. Biodiversity Net Gain is coming down the track faster than high speed rail, and we are about to get even more new permitted development rights. Natural England has also recently indicated that enforcing BNG requirements is also likely to fall within the remit of local planning authorities - which is yet another job for the planners.
In many ways, the fees consultation could not have come at a better time.** Our planning system needs to be placed on a more sustainable footing.
That does not, however, mean that the planning system should become entirely funded by developers. Indeed, it is important that it does not. Planning is a genuinely public service, it creates places and communities - and that requires investment from ALL relevant stakeholders, including taxpayers and central government. Income from planning fees can only ever be part of the solution.
Given the pressure on local government funding more generally, it also needs to be a ringfenced part of the solution. To ensure that the additional funds are reinvested into local planning departments and not used to subsidise other services.
Thankfully, the government is consulting on ringfencing proposals, which is an encouraging sign. It is also encouraging that this consultation is not purely about funding, but about resourcing more widely.
The government has finally recognised the difficulties local authorities are facing in recruitment and addressing skills gaps within their planning departments. There does appear to be a genuine commitment to addressing these issues - even if the consultation itself does not propose any actual solutions.
There are also proposals to introduce new performance monitoring measures, to try and improve the experience of users of planning services.
Now don't get me wrong. This is not a perfect policy. I do have concerns about the potential impact of the fees hike on SMEs and householders. I also fear that the proposals around retrospective application fees and the 'free go' could have some potentially nasty unintended consequences, but these are points that could be addressed through further refinement or a targeted rebate programme.
When you get right down to it: I have been saying for a while that the one biggest thing the government could do to improve the planning system is to fund it properly.
It looks as if, at last, we might be one small step closer to that actually happening.
*if you think I am being dramatic - a list of DLUHC's upcoming planning consultation programme can be found here
**well, unless you take the view that it should have come forward a long time ago - but we can't do much about that now
The London Borough of Croydon’s cabinet approved the “planning transformation action plan”, which it said would help to “revive” its paused local plan, at a meeting on 22 February.
According to the plan, a review of the authority’s planning service found it was “close to breaking point” after “financial constraint, changing working practices as a result of the significant period of lockdown, an increase in planning applications during the lockdown period and a nationwide shortage of qualified and experienced planning staff, …had a significant impact on the service”.”
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