Planning Matters - Labour Shortages and Skills Gaps

Download or read book Planning Matters - Labour Shortages and Skills Gaps written by Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Communities and Local Government Committee and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2008 with total page 60 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: England's planning system underpins the country's economic growth and development, but there is a significant risk that major Government targets for housebuilding and regeneration will be missed because the system is unable to manage the volume or variety of tasks Wider economic well-being and delivery of the Government's environmental priorities could well be hindered simply because the system cannot cope. Two chronic problems are identified: a drastic shortage of planning officiers, estimated to affect 46 per cent of local authority posts by 2012; and a significant and growing skills gap among those planners remain within the system.The Government has established several bodies to try to reverse the trend, but their influence has been limited and patchy to date, raising some confusion over precisely who is responsible for raising planning numbers and skills levels. Efforts to raise the number of students taking planning related university courses have been more successful, but it will take time to see tangible benefits from this.