Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:

To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the commitment in the Labour Manifesto 2024 to appoint 300 new planning officers, how many have been recruited to date.

The Department’s Planning Capacity and Capability programme already funds successful and well-established initiatives for bringing planners into the public sector, which we will seek to build on. This includes working with two delivery partners, Pathways to Planning a programme run by the Local Government Association and Public Practice. Pathways to Planning have delivered more than 80 new graduate planners, and Public Practice are recruiting 20 more experienced professionals into their Autumn 2024 cohort.

To rapidly increase these numbers, at the Budget the Chancellor announced a £46 million package of investment to support capacity and capability in local planning authorities. We are therefore working with delivery partners to understand how we can scale up this delivery even further and, fund the recruitment and training of an additional 300 planners. This includes expansion of the Pathways to Planning programme which has had significant interest from prospective graduates wanting to take up roles in local planning authorities and train while they work. This will be further underpinned by increases in planning fees we are introducing in the coming months that will help improve the resourcing of planning services. This activity will include monitoring measures to ensure this commitment is met.