In February 2024 Planning published a special report by Joey Gardiner entitled ‘how cost-saving consultants disrupted council planning services’. 

Cash-strapped councils have been following management consultants’ advice to split up their planning teams. Staff have been put into central departments to handle additional non-planning tasks. But the upshot, say critics, has been declining performance and a staff exodus.

Joey’s piece highlighted the tumult at Tandridge, which in 2020 was formally threatened with designation over the quality of its decision-making. A subsequent PAS review of the council’s development management service, which was published in 2021, laid the blame squarely on a team structure “developed during the corporate restructure” that it said was “not fit for purpose”. 

That local government has borne the brunt of the age of austerity is well known. According to the IFS, during the 2010s, councils’ overall core funding per person fell by an average of 26% in real terms, with higher council tax revenues only partially offsetting a 46% reduction in funding from central government. 

Those in the sector know that planning and development has borne the brunt of that. Again according to the IFS, spending per person on planning and development fell by 58% between 2010/11 and 2019/20, which was second only to cuts to services for young people and Sure Start. Perhaps less well known, and what Joey’s article has helped to shine a light on, is the impact on planning services of the kind of whole-authority service transformations that some authorities have undertaken to in order to deal with these financial pressures.

To explore this issue further Sam Stafford invited four of the people quoted in Joey’s article to expand upon their experiences with him. They are old friends of the podcast Mike Kiely, Gilian MacInnes and Paul Barnard, and new friend of the podcast Peter Ford. In a conversation recorded at Soho Radio Studios at the end of April 2024 they talked about the pressures that LPAs have been and are under; why the nature of planning services do not lend it to whole-authority service transformations; and the impact of such upheavals. They also talked about whether there are too planning teams and whether Chief Planning Officers could and should be at the top decision-making table.

The episode starts though with a brief conversation that Sam recorded online with Joey Gardiner recently about his special report for Planning. Sam asked Joey how he went about putting the report together; what he found most striking in so doing; and what feedback he has had on it.

Some accompanying reading.

How cost-saving consultants disrupted council planning services (£)

https://www.planningresource.co.uk/article/1860857/cost-saving-consultants-disrupted-council-planning-services

Tandridge District Council - DM Review

https://tandridge.moderngov.co.uk/documents/s4234/Appendix%20A%20-%20Development%20Management%20Review.pdf

Guildford Borough Council - Development Management Establishment Review

https://democracy.guildford.gov.uk/documents/s26379/Item%208%20-%20DM%20Budget%20Exec%20Report%20revised%20for%20Autumn%202022%20-%20FINAL-%20V4.pdf

How have English councils’ funding and spending changed? 2010 to 2024

https://ifs.org.uk/publications/how-have-english-councils-funding-and-spending-changed-2010-2024

Some accompanying listening.

Episode 84 of Room 106

https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/ep84-how-cost-saving-management-consultants-are-impacting/id1596110607?i=1000649057189

A Shared Sense Of Purpose - Warrington-Runcorn New Town Development Plan (Vince Clarke Remix)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GpeRnH2FLA4