Labour’s pledge to hire 300 planning officers fails to make up for staff exits

Labour’s proposal to hire 300 planning officers to “get Britain building again” will replace less than a tenth of the planners who left public service during the first decade of the current Conservative government. 

The number of planning officers in the public sector fell by about 3,100, or roughly a fifth, between 2010 and 2020, according to analysis by the Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI), the professional organisation for planners.

The modest scale of Labour’s proposal highlights the difficulty Sir Keir Starmer would face in delivering radical planning reform within the tight fiscal constraints he has set if his party wins the July 4 general election.

Dysfunction in the planning system, which scrutinises and approves building projects, has been singled out as a key brake on the UK economy and a big reason behind the housing shortage.

The number of major planning cases being decided within official deadlines has declined from 60 per cent in 2012 to just 20 per cent last year.

Lack of experienced staff in planning offices at local authorities, which handle much of the work, has been blamed for the slowdown.

“300 planning officers is not going to move the needle, let’s be honest,” said the chief executive of one of the UK’s largest listed landlords, adding that it was at least a move in the right direction.

Richard Blyth, head of policy at the RTPI, said budget cuts at councils and higher salaries in the private sector contributed to the losses of staff, and that larger numbers of planning officers took early retirement during the Covid-19 pandemic.

“We know that the financial situation for local authorities is severely constrained, with some authorities such as Birmingham making redundancies in planning and many others not filling vacant posts,” he added.

Labour said: “We want to work with local councils to deliver new homes which is why we are offering support for local areas . . . [and] recruiting hundreds of new planners to help them do this.” 

The RTPI said there were about 22,000 planners in the country as of last year, with an increasing number taking jobs in the private sector where they work on behalf of those making planning applications.

Changes in official employment statistics since 2020 has made it difficult to specify the numbers moving out of the public sector since then, the RTPI added.

The Conservative party did not immediately provide a comment.

Last year, the government announced £24mn in extra funding for local planning capacity and £13.5mn for a “super-squad” of expert officers to assist local departments with big projects. 

The Home Builders Federation, which represents commercial housebuilders, has welcomed the Labour pledge to boost staffing, but said “ultimately thousands [of planning officers] will need to be recruited and trained if applications are to be processed at the rate necessary to build the homes we desperately need”.

Shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves has pledged not to raise most taxes if Labour wins the election despite warnings from the IMF that the UK is likely to need higher public spending than is currently planned.

The party said raising the land transfer tax on non-UK residents would fund the extra 300 planning jobs, but it has not said how quickly they would be hired. Labour has also pledged to reform national planning rules.